Healthy older observers cannot use biological-motion point-light information efficiently within 4 m of themselves

Isabelle Legault

Visual Psychophysics and Perception Laboratory, 3744 Jean-Brillant, School of Optometry, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, H3T 1P1, Canada

isabelle.legault.3@umontreal.ca

Nikolaus F Troje

Department of Psychology, Department of Biology, School of Computing, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada

troje@queensu.ca

Jocelyn Faubert

Visual Psychophysics and Perception Laboratory, 3744 Jean-Brillant, School of Optometry, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, H3T 1P1, Canada

jocelyn.faubert@umontreal.ca

 
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Abstract. Healthy aging is associated with a number of perceptual changes, but measures of biological-motion perception have yielded conflicting results. Biological motion provides information about a walker, from gender and identity to speed, direction, and distance. In our natural environment, as someone approaches us (closer distances), the walker spans larger areas of our field of view, the extent of which can be underutilized with age. Yet, the effect of age on biological-motion perception in such real-world scenarios remains unknown. We assessed the effect of age on discriminating walking direction in upright and inverted biological-motion patterns, positioned at various distances in virtual space. Findings indicate that discrimination is worse at closer distances, an effect exacerbated by age. Older adults’ performance decreases at distances as far away as 4 m, whereas younger adults maintain their performance as close as 1 m (worse at 0.5 m). This suggests that older observers are limited in their capacity to integrate information over larger areas of the visual field and supports the notion that age-related effects are more apparent when larger neural networks are required to process simultaneous information. This has further implications for social contexts where information from biological motion is critical.


Cite as: Legault I, Troje N F, Faubert J, 2012, "Healthy older observers cannot use biological-motion point-light information efficiently within 4 m of themselves" i-Perception 3(2) 104–111
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DOI: 10.1068/i0485

ISSN: 2041-6695 (electronic only)

Copyright: Copyright is retained by the author(s) of this article. This open-access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Licence, which permits noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original author(s) and source are credited and no alterations are made.
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