title: Aging and the perception of slant from optical texture, motion parallax, and binocular disparity.
abstract: The ability of younger and older observers to perceive surface slant was investigated in four experiments. The surfaces possessed slants of 20 degrees, 35 degrees, 50 degrees, and 65 degrees, relative to the frontoparallel plane. The observers judged the slants using either a palm board (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) or magnitude estimation (Experiment 2). In Experiments 1-3, physically slanted surfaces were used (the surfaces possessed marble, granite, pebble, and circle textures), whereas computer-generated 3-D surfaces (defined by motion parallax and binocular disparity) were utilized in Experiment 4. The results showed that the younger and older observers' performance was essentially identical with regard to accuracy. The younger and older age groups, however, differed in terms of precision in Experiments 1 and 2: The judgments of the older observers were more variable across repeated trials. When taken as a whole, the results demonstrate that older observers (at least through the age of 83 years) can effectively extract information about slant in depth from optical patterns containing texture, motion parallax, or binocular disparity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky 42101, USA. farley.norman@wku.edu
authors.forename: J Farley
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Norman
authors.forename: Charles E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Crabtree
authors.forename: Ashley N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Bartholomew
authors.forename: Elizabeth L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Ferrell
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D003867:Depth Perception; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D015357:Vision Disparity; D055815:Young Adult