Reading and coherent motion perception in school age children

Abstract

This study includes an evaluation, according to age, of the reading and global motion perception developmental trajectories of 2027 school age children in typical stages of development. Reading is assessed using the reading rate score test, for which all of the student participants, regardless of age, received the same passage of text of a medium difficulty reading level. The coherent motion perception threshold is determined according to the adaptive psychophysical protocol based on a four-alternative, forced-choice procedure. Three different dot velocities: 2, 5, and 8 deg/s were used for both assemblies of coherent or randomly moving dots. Reading rate score test results exhibit a wide dispersion across all age groups, so much so that the outlier data overlap, for both the 8 and 18-year-old student-participant age groups. Latvian children's reading fluency developmental trajectories reach maturation at 12-13 years of age. After the age of 13, reading rate scores increase slowly; however, the linear regression slope is different from zero and positive: F(1, 827) = 45.3; p < 0.0001. One hundred eighty-one student-participants having results below the 10th percentile were classified as weak readers in our study group. The reading fluency developmental trajectory of this particular group of student-participants does not exhibit any statistically significant saturation until the age of 18 years old. Coherent motion detection thresholds decrease with age and do not reach saturation. Tests with slower moving dots (2 deg/s) yield results that exhibit significant differences between strong and weak readers.

Motion coherence and direction discrimination in healthy aging

“…The results and implications from our study are not only of importance to aging but might also be able to guide research in other areas. Changes in motion perception have been observed in a variety of disorders such as dyslexia (Boets, Vandermosten, Cornelissen, Wouters, & Ghesquière, 2011;Eden et al, 1996;Gori, Seitz, Ronconi, Franceschini, & Facoetti, 2015;Gori, Mascheretti et al, 2015;Kassaliete, Lacis, Fomins, & Krumina, 2015), autism (Koldewyn, Whitney, & Rivera, 2010, 2011Robertson et al, 2014;Ronconi et al, 2012), and schizophrenia (Chen, Nakayama, Levy, Matthysse, & Holzman, 2003;Spencer, Sekuler, Bennett, & Christensen, 2013). It is generally assumed that deficits in global motion perception in these disorders are related to a dysfunction of areas in the dorsal pathway, especially area MT/V5.…”

The effects of preterm birth on visual development

“…Motion coherence thresholds measured using RDKs are correlated with reading rate in school‐aged children; nevertheless, the evidence between impaired motion perception and poorer reading performance is controversial . Impaired biological motion perception has also been linked to social cognition .…”

Dogs are not better than humans at detecting coherent motion

“…Higher thresholds, in the range of 20% to 60%, are reported for other species, such as pigeons 9 , rats and mice 10 . Higher thresholds are also found in specific human populations, such as children 11 – 13 , adults with autism 14 or dyslexia 4 , 5 .…”