title: Adult aging, processing style, and the perception of biological motion.
abstract: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Social perception may be influenced by the extent to which individuals focus on global, rather than local, detail-based, processing of information about others. Here the authors investigated whether global processing biases relate to successful detection of actions and emotions from point-light biological motion (BM) stimuli. Also explored is whether age differences in BM perception and global-local processing biases are related.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and twenty-seven participants (aged 18 to 86) completed tasks assessing BM perception and global-local processing.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Successful decoding of actions and emotions from BM stimuli was correlated with global processing bias. Older adults performed more poorly on BM decoding and had a local processing bias. However, age differences in global-local processing could not fully explain differences in decoding actions or emotions from point-light displays.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Therefore, although there was an association between age, perceptual processing bias, and detection of BM, other factors must be important in explaining age-related change in social perception.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences and Medicine, School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, William Guild Building, Kings College, Aberdeen AB24 2UB, UK. pauline.insch@abdn.ac.uk
authors.forename: Pauline M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Insch
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bull
authors.forename: Louise H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Slessor
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D019260:Expressed Emotion; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009039:Motion Perception; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult