Reduction in Direction Discrimination With Age and Slow Speed Is Due to Both Increased Internal Noise and Reduced Sampling Efficiency

Abstract

There is motion sensitivity loss with age that arises from an increase in internal noise in the responses of directional sensors and a decrease in responses that contribute to the global decision. Differences in the rates of progression at each speed indicate that motion is processed by independent systems tuned to different speeds, and that the channel for slow speed may be more vulnerable to normal age-related changes.

Motion perception as a model for perceptual aging

“…Although only few studies have systematically varied speed (compare Table 1), there is increasing evidence that the perception of slower motion is more vulnerable to age than the perception of faster motion. This pattern has been reported for motion detection as well as for motion direction discrimination Bogfjellmo et al, 2013). The exact definition of slow and fast speeds differs between studies depending on the specific paradigms that overall have considered a speed range from , 18/s to 18.88/s.…”

“…Stimuli typically involve coarse motion along the cardinal axes. The most consistent age-differences have been found using correlational designs across the adult age range (Billino et al, 2008;Bogfjellmo et al, 2013;Tran et al, 1998;Trick & Silverman, 1991). Estimated increases in coherence thresholds range from 1% per decade (Tran et al, 1998;Trick & Silverman, 1991) to 2.7% per decade (Billino et al, 2008) with larger increases coinciding with shorter stimulus durations.…”

“…Findings often show substantial age-related increase in coherence thresholds (Allen, Hutchinson, Ledgeway, & Gayle, 2010;Andersen & Atchley, 1995;Atchley & Andersen, 1998;Gilmore, Wenk, Naylor, & Stuve, 1992;Snowden & Kavanagh, 2006;Wojciechowski, Trick, & Steinman, 1995; but see also Porter et al, 2017). Moreover, speed discrimination (Genova & Bocheva, 2013;Norman, Ross, Hawkes, & Long, 2003) as well as motion direction discrimination (Ball & Sekuler, 1986;Bennett et al, 2007;Bocheva, Angelova, & Stefanova, 2013;Bogfjellmo et al, 2013) have been found to decline with increasing age. However, results seem to vary largely depending on stimulus parameters such motion direction (Ball & Sekuler, 1986;Pilz, Miller, & Agnew, 2017), stimulus size (Hutchinson, Ledgeway, & Allen, 2014), contrast (Allen et al, 2010), stimulus duration (Bennett et al, 2007;Conlon, Power, Hine, & Rahaley, 2017), or location (Wojciechowski et al, 1995).…”

“…Even though consistent changes have been observed using correlational designs, studies that compared performance across age ranges by decades have found most prominent changes in adults older than 70 years (Arena, Hutchinson, & Shimozaki, 2012;Bennett, Sekuler, & Sekuler, 2007;Bogfjellmo et al, 2013). Most studies indeed compared thresholds between just two age groups, i.e., between younger adults, typically aged between 18 and 30 years, and older adults, typically older than 60 years.…”

“…Similarly, age effects on motion perception have been found to be dissociated from other changes in visual perception (e.g., Porter et al, 2017;Shaqiri et al, 2015), and even within the domain of motion perception differential effects have been observed (e.g., Billino, Bremmer, & Gegenfurtner, 2008;. Most importantly, motion perception has been shown to be highly sensitive to gradual age-related changes across adulthood (Billino et al, 2008;Bogfjellmo, Bex, & Falkenberg, 2013;Tran, Silverman, Zimmerman, & Feldon, 1998;Trick & Silverman, 1991). In addition, these changes have been specifically linked to healthy aging and can be differentiated from pathological processes, e.g., related to dementia (Kavcic, Vaughn, & Duffy, 2011;Mapstone, Dickerson, & Duffy, 2008;Wilkins, Gray, Graska, & Winterbottom, 2013).…”