title: Visual Acuity does not Moderate Effect Sizes of Higher-Level Cognitive Tasks.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Declining visual capacities in older adults have been posited as a driving force behind adult age differences in higher-order cognitive functions (e.g., the "common cause" hypothesis of Lindenberger & Baltes, 1994, Psychology and Aging, 9, 339-355). McGowan, Patterson, and Jordan (2013, Experimental Aging Research, 39, 70-79) also found that a surprisingly large number of published cognitive aging studies failed to include adequate measures of visual acuity. However, a recent meta-analysis of three studies (La Fleur and Salthouse, 2014, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21, 1202-1208) failed to find evidence that visual acuity moderated or mediated age differences in higher-level cognitive processes. In order to provide a more extensive test of whether visual acuity moderates age differences in higher-level cognitive processes, we conducted a more extensive meta-analysis of topic.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using results from 456 studies, we calculated effect sizes for the main effect of age across four cognitive domains (attention, executive function, memory, and perception/language) separately for five levels of visual acuity criteria (no criteria, undisclosed criteria, self-reported acuity, 20/80-20/31, and 20/30 or better).
  
  
  RESULTS
  As expected, age had a significant effect on each cognitive domain. However, these age effects did not further differ as a function of visual acuity criteria.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current meta-analytic, cross-sectional results suggest that visual acuity is not significantly related to age group differences in higher-level cognitive performance-thereby replicating La Fleur and Salthouse (2014). Further efforts are needed to determine whether other measures of visual functioning (e.g., contrast sensitivity, luminance) affect age differences in cognitive functioning.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , The University of Akron , Akron , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Houston
authors.affiliation: b Department of Neurobiology and Behavior , University of California , Irvine , Irvine California , USA.
authors.forename: Ilana J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.affiliation: a Department of Psychology , The University of Akron , Akron , Ohio , USA.
authors.forename: Philip A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.affiliation: c Brain Imaging and Analysis Center , Duke University Medical Center , Durham , North Carolina , USA.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Madden
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D056344:Executive Function; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D010465:Perception; D014792:Visual Acuity