ORCA: A picture database of object–scene arrangements for cross-cultural and aging research

In recent years, cross-cultural research on the modulation of basic cognitive processes by culture has intensified – also from an aging perspective. Despite this increased research interest, only a few cross-culturally normed non-verbal stimulus sets are available to support cross-cultural cognitive research in younger and older adults. Here we present the ORCA (Official Rating of Complex Arrangements) picture database, which includes a total of 720 object–scene compositions sorted into 180 quadruples (e.g., two different helmets placed in two different deserts). Each quadruple contains visually and semantically matched pairs of objects and pairs of scenes with varying degrees of semantic fit between objects and scenes. A total of 95 younger and older German and Chinese adults rated every object–scene pair on object familiarity and semantic fit between object and scene. While the ratings were significantly correlated between cultures and age groups, small but significant culture and age differences emerged. Object familiarity was higher for older adults than younger adults and for German participants than for Chinese participants. Semantic fit was rated lower by German older adults and Chinese younger adults as compared to German younger adults and Chinese older adults. Due to the large number of stimuli, our database is particularly well suited for cognitive and neuroscientific research on cross-cultural and age-related differences in perception, attention, and memory. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13428-023-02064-x.