Aging and the visual, haptic, and cross-modal perception of natural object shape.
One hundred observers participated in two experiments designed to investigate aging and the perception of natural object shape. In the experiments, younger and older observers performed either a same/different shape discrimination task (experiment 1) or a cross-modal matching task (experiment 2). Quantitative effects of age were found in both experiments. The effect of age in experiment 1 was limited to cross-modal shape discrimination: there was no effect of age upon unimodal (ie within a single perceptual modality) shape discrimination. The effect of age in experiment 2 was eliminated when the older observers were either given an unlimited amount of time to perform the task or when the number of response alternatives was decreased. Overall, the results of the experiments reveal that older observers can effectively perceive 3-D shape from both vision and haptics.
Norman
J Farley
JF
Department of Psychology, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green 42101-1030, USA. Farley.Norman@wku.edu
Crabtree
Charles E
CE
Norman
Hideko F
HF
Moncrief
Brandon K
BK
Herrmann
Molly
M
Kapley
Noah
N
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D002212:Capsicum; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011601:Psychophysics; D013236:Stereognosis / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D015348:Vision, Binocular