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Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging

The perception of a visual stimulus can be markedly altered by spatial interactions between the stimulus and its surround. For example, a grating stimulus appears lower in contrast when surrounded by a similar pattern of higher contrast: a phenomenon known as surround suppression of perceived contra...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Nguyen, Bao N., McKendrick, Allison M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834301/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27148047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00079
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author Nguyen, Bao N.
McKendrick, Allison M.
author_facet Nguyen, Bao N.
McKendrick, Allison M.
author_sort Nguyen, Bao N.
collection PubMed
description The perception of a visual stimulus can be markedly altered by spatial interactions between the stimulus and its surround. For example, a grating stimulus appears lower in contrast when surrounded by a similar pattern of higher contrast: a phenomenon known as surround suppression of perceived contrast. Such center–surround interactions in visual perception are numerous and arise from both cortical and pre-cortical neural circuitry. For example, perceptual surround suppression of luminance and flicker are predominantly mediated pre-cortically, whereas contrast and orientation suppression have strong cortical contributions. Here, we compare the perception of older and younger observers on a battery of tasks designed to assess such visual contextual effects. For all visual dimensions tested (luminance, flicker, contrast, and orientation), on average the older adults showed greater suppression of central targets than the younger adult group. The increase in suppression was consistent in magnitude across all tasks, suggesting that normal aging produces a generalized, non-specific alteration to contextual processing in vision.
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spelling pubmed-48343012016-05-04 Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging Nguyen, Bao N. McKendrick, Allison M. Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience The perception of a visual stimulus can be markedly altered by spatial interactions between the stimulus and its surround. For example, a grating stimulus appears lower in contrast when surrounded by a similar pattern of higher contrast: a phenomenon known as surround suppression of perceived contrast. Such center–surround interactions in visual perception are numerous and arise from both cortical and pre-cortical neural circuitry. For example, perceptual surround suppression of luminance and flicker are predominantly mediated pre-cortically, whereas contrast and orientation suppression have strong cortical contributions. Here, we compare the perception of older and younger observers on a battery of tasks designed to assess such visual contextual effects. For all visual dimensions tested (luminance, flicker, contrast, and orientation), on average the older adults showed greater suppression of central targets than the younger adult group. The increase in suppression was consistent in magnitude across all tasks, suggesting that normal aging produces a generalized, non-specific alteration to contextual processing in vision. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4834301/ /pubmed/27148047 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00079 Text en Copyright © 2016 Nguyen and McKendrick. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Nguyen, Bao N.
McKendrick, Allison M.
Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging
title Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging
title_full Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging
title_fullStr Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging
title_full_unstemmed Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging
title_short Visual Contextual Effects of Orientation, Contrast, Flicker, and Luminance: All Are Affected by Normal Aging
title_sort visual contextual effects of orientation, contrast, flicker, and luminance: all are affected by normal aging
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834301/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27148047
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00079
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