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Effects of aging on figure-ground perception: Convexity context effects and competition resolution

We examined age-related differences in figure-ground perception by exploring the effect of age on Convexity Context Effects (CCE; Peterson & Salvagio, 2008). Experiment 1, using Peterson and Salvagio's procedure and black and white stimuli consisting of 2 to 8 alternating concave and convex regions, established that older adults exhibited reduced CCEs compared to younger adults. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that this age difference was found at various stimulus durations and sizes. Experiment 4 compared CCEs obtained with achromatic stimuli, in which the alternating convex and concave regions were each all black or all white, and chromatic stimuli in which the concave regions were homogeneous in color but the convex regions varied in color. We found that the difference between CCEs measured with achromatic and colored stimuli was larger in older than in younger adults. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the senescent visual system is less able to resolve the competition among various perceptual interpretations of the figure-ground relations among stimulus regions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/623274
Date28 February 2017
CreatorsLass, Jordan W., Bennett, Patrick J., Peterson, Mary A., Sekuler, Allison B.
ContributorsUniv Arizona, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canadajwlass@gmail.com, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canadabennett@mcmaster.ca, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USAmapeters@email.arizona.edu, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canadasekuler@mcmaster.ca
PublisherASSOC RESEARCH VISION OPHTHALMOLOGY INC
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle
RightsCopyright 2017 The Authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Relationhttp://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?doi=10.1167/17.2.15

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