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Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination

Previous research has shown age-related differences in discriminating motion at different levels of contrast (Betts et al., 2005, 2009, 2012). A surprising result of this research is that older as compared to younger observers showed improved performance in detecting motion of large high-contrast st...

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Autores principales: Bower, Jeffrey D., Watanabe, Takeo, Andersen, George J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576628/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23429674
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00066
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author Bower, Jeffrey D.
Watanabe, Takeo
Andersen, George J.
author_facet Bower, Jeffrey D.
Watanabe, Takeo
Andersen, George J.
author_sort Bower, Jeffrey D.
collection PubMed
description Previous research has shown age-related differences in discriminating motion at different levels of contrast (Betts et al., 2005, 2009, 2012). A surprising result of this research is that older as compared to younger observers showed improved performance in detecting motion of large high-contrast stimuli suggesting age-related differences in center-surround antagonism. In the present study we examined whether perceptual learning methods could be used to improve motion discrimination performance for older individuals under high- and low-contrast conditions. The stimuli were centrally presented Gaussian filtered sine-wave gratings (Gabors) that were either 5° or 0.7° diameter with contrast of 0.92, 0.22, or 0.028. Older and younger participants received 3 days of training. The task was to identify if the motion direction was leftward or rightward. Duration thresholds for motion discrimination were derived using two randomly interleaved staircases and compared between pre-/post-test sessions. Both older and younger subjects showed lower duration thresholds as a result of training. The improved performance, for older subjects, due to training was observed for all size and contrast conditions, with training with small low-contrast stimuli resulting in a 23% improvement in motion discrimination performance. Older observers, as compared to younger observers, did show evidence of decreased spatial suppression across all contrast levels. These results suggest that perceptual learning techniques are effective for improving motion discrimination performance, especially for conditions that are difficult for older individuals.
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spelling pubmed-35766282013-02-21 Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination Bower, Jeffrey D. Watanabe, Takeo Andersen, George J. Front Psychol Psychology Previous research has shown age-related differences in discriminating motion at different levels of contrast (Betts et al., 2005, 2009, 2012). A surprising result of this research is that older as compared to younger observers showed improved performance in detecting motion of large high-contrast stimuli suggesting age-related differences in center-surround antagonism. In the present study we examined whether perceptual learning methods could be used to improve motion discrimination performance for older individuals under high- and low-contrast conditions. The stimuli were centrally presented Gaussian filtered sine-wave gratings (Gabors) that were either 5° or 0.7° diameter with contrast of 0.92, 0.22, or 0.028. Older and younger participants received 3 days of training. The task was to identify if the motion direction was leftward or rightward. Duration thresholds for motion discrimination were derived using two randomly interleaved staircases and compared between pre-/post-test sessions. Both older and younger subjects showed lower duration thresholds as a result of training. The improved performance, for older subjects, due to training was observed for all size and contrast conditions, with training with small low-contrast stimuli resulting in a 23% improvement in motion discrimination performance. Older observers, as compared to younger observers, did show evidence of decreased spatial suppression across all contrast levels. These results suggest that perceptual learning techniques are effective for improving motion discrimination performance, especially for conditions that are difficult for older individuals. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-02-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3576628/ /pubmed/23429674 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00066 Text en Copyright © 2013 Bower, Watanabe and Andersen. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Psychology
Bower, Jeffrey D.
Watanabe, Takeo
Andersen, George J.
Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination
title Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination
title_full Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination
title_fullStr Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination
title_full_unstemmed Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination
title_short Perceptual Learning and Aging: Improved Performance for Low-Contrast Motion Discrimination
title_sort perceptual learning and aging: improved performance for low-contrast motion discrimination
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3576628/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23429674
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00066
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