The effect of aging on contour integration

Roudaia, Eugenie; Bennett, Patrick J.; Sekuler, Allison B.

doi:10.1016/j.visres.2008.07.026

Cited by 51 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…There are previous reports of differences in mean performance between younger (typically aged below 35 years) and older (typically aged above 60 years) groups for all the tasks included in our study (collinear facilitation, 16 centersurround suppression, 18,19 contour integration, [21][22][23]38 Glass pattern coherence thresholds 24 ). In this dataset, the main effect of group approached significance for the collinear facilitation task and the contour integration tasks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Visual Form Perception from Age 20 through 80 Years

McKendrick¹,

Weymouth²,

Battista³

2013

Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci.

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PURPOSE. We measured performance on a battery of visual form perception tasks for adults sampled evenly from each decade of adult life from 20 to 80 years. METHODS.Measures were included that are considered to reflect processing at early through intermediate stages of the form processing pathways: collinear facilitation, center-surround contrast effects, global shape discrimination of contours of elements embedded in noise elements, and global shape discrimination in texture (Glass patterns). A total of 38 women and 20 men (mainly Caucasian, low refractive error) participated, aged between 20 and 82 years.RESULTS. With advancing age, contrast sensitivity decreased linearly (B ¼ 0.009, t(56) ¼ 8.14, P < 0.001), perceptual surround suppression of low contrast stimuli embedded in higher contrast surrounds increased (B ¼À0.006, t(56) ¼À3.32, P < 0.01), and coherence thresholds for detecting form in Glass patterns increased (B ¼ 0.14, t(56) ¼ 2.53, P ¼ 0.02). Performance between tasks was not correlated.CONCLUSIONS. Several aspects of form perception alter gradually throughout the adult lifespan, namely context-dependent perception of contrast, and the extraction of global shape from texture. Our results suggested age-dependent differences under natural viewing conditions that are not predictable by standard clinical measures of visual function, and point to changes in neural function that are ongoing throughout adult life. (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Visual Form Perception from Age 20 through 80 Years

McKendrick¹,

Weymouth²,

Battista³

2013

Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci.

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“…Consequently, the fact that older adults demonstrate reduced near surround suppression of perceived contrast parafoveally predicts that older adults may have difficulties with tasks requiring contour integration. Indeed, perceptual contour integration is altered in older adults (McKendrick, Weymouth, & Battista, 2010;Roudaia, Bennett, & Sekuler, 2008). Notably, contour integration performance in older adults can be improved by training to levels similar to younger adults pretraining , implying plasticity in the mechanisms underpinning such local spatial interactions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foveal and parafoveal contrast suppression are different: Mechanisms revealed by the study of healthy aging

Nguyen

McKendrick

2016

Journal of Vision

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Visual contextual effects enable inference regarding neural mechanisms of cortical function, principally because of similarities between the stimulus properties influencing human perception and those modifying primate visual cortical neural responses. Most neurophysiology assesses nonfoveal cellular function and circuitry, while most human studies are foveal. Here we use parafoveal stimuli to measure center-surround perception of contrast in older and younger adults. We measure the influence of both near and far surround because neurophysiology demonstrates different circuitry for these areas. Contrast suppression from the near surround was reduced in older observers, while that from the far surround was intact. Our results are consistent with reduced intracortical inhibition with age and normal extrastriate feedback. Interestingly, in the same older observers, foveal surround suppression of contrast was strengthened relative to younger adults, demonstrating a clear distinction between foveal and parafoveal center-surround behavior. We assume that underlying alterations in cortical neurotransmitter levels with age should not differ substantially between the areas of visual cortex representing foveal and near foveal regions. Consequently, our results suggest regional differences in center-surround circuitry. That older adults have varied contextual effects of visual contrast as a function of retinal eccentricity suggests complex effects of aging on scene and object perception.

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“…Several lines of research indicate that OA are impaired at tasks that require the integration of information across space including Gestalt perception (Andersen & Ni, 2008;Roudaia, Bennett, & Sekuler, 2008). Studies that have examined whether these findings extend to holistic face processing have yielded equivocal results (reviewed by Boutet et al, 2015).…”

Section: Impaired Holistic Processing (Hypothesis 2)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Age Differences in Face Processing: The Role of Perceptual Degradation and Holistic Processing

Boutet

Meinhardt‐Injac

2018

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B

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Objectives: We simultaneously investigated the role of three hypotheses regarding age-related differences in face processing: perceptual degradation, impaired holistic processing, and an interaction between the two. Methods: Young adults (YA) aged 20-33-year olds, middle-age adults (MA) aged 50-64-year olds, and older adults (OA) aged 65-82-year olds were tested on the context congruency paradigm, which allows measurement of face-specific holistic processing across the life span (Meinhardt-Injac, Persike & Meinhardt, 2014. Acta Psychologica, 151, 155-163). Perceptual degradation was examined by measuring performance with faces that were not filtered (FSF), with faces filtered to preserve low spatial frequencies (LSF), and with faces filtered to preserve high spatial frequencies (HSF). Results: We found that reducing perceptual signal strength had a greater impact on MA and OA for HSF faces, but not LSF faces. Context congruency effects were significant and of comparable magnitude across ages for FSF, LSF, and HSF faces. By using watches as control objects, we show that these holistic effects reflect face-specific mechanisms in all age groups. Discussion: Our results support the perceptual degradation hypothesis for faces containing only HSF and suggest that holistic processing is preserved in aging even under conditions of reduced signal strength.

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The effect of aging on contour integration

Cited by 51 publications

References 63 publications

Visual Form Perception from Age 20 through 80 Years

Visual Form Perception from Age 20 through 80 Years

Foveal and parafoveal contrast suppression are different: Mechanisms revealed by the study of healthy aging

Age Differences in Face Processing: The Role of Perceptual Degradation and Holistic Processing

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