Stronger vection in junior high school children than in adults

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that even elementary school-aged children (7 and 11 years old) experience visually induced perception of illusory self-motion (vection) (Lepecq et al., 1995, Perception, 24, 435–449) and that children of a similar age (mean age = 9.2 years) experience more rapid and stronger vection than do adults (Shirai et al., 2012, Perception, 41, 1399–1402). These findings imply that although elementary school-aged children experience vection, this ability is subject to further development. To examine the subsequent development of vection, we compared junior high school students' (N = 11, mean age = 14.4 years) and adults' (N = 10, mean age = 22.2 years) experiences of vection. Junior high school students reported significantly stronger vection than did adults, suggesting that the perceptual experience of junior high school students differs from that of adults with regard to vection and that this ability undergoes gradual changes over a relatively long period of development.

Vection Is Unaffected by Circadian Rhythms

“…As described in the introduction, vection can be easily modified by various factors. Physical burden (Seno, Abe, & Kiyokawa, 2013), age (Shirai, Seno, & Morohashi, 2013;Shirai et al, 2014;Haibach, Slobounov, & Newell, 2009), mood (Sasaki et al, 2012), altitude of the experimental environment (Nishimura et al, 2014), microgravity (Young & Shelhamer 1990;Mueller & Kornilova, 1994;Allison et al, 2012), body posture (Nakamura & Shimojo, 1998;Seno, 2014), stimulus meanings (Seno & Fukuda, 2012;Ogawa & Seno, 2014), and alcohol consumption (Seno & Nakamura, 2013) are all known to alter the strength of vection. Despite the large number of factors that are known to modulate vection, we found that time, i.e.…”

“…Additionally, physical burdens (e.g., wearing heavy iron clogs) have been found to inhibit vection (Seno, Abe, & Kiyokawa, 2013) while alcohol consumption can facilitate vection (Seno & Nakamura, 2013). Vection also varies depending on age (Shirai, Seno, & Morohashi, 2013;Shirai et al, 2014;Haibach, Slobounov, & Newell, 2009).…”

Perceiving jittering self-motion in a field of lollipops from ages 4 to 95

“…Thus, the increased latency with age is unlikely to be solely due to increased reaction time suggesting an increased delay in the generation of a useful level of vection that contributes to changes in the estimation of motion with age. Consistent with this conclusion, Shirai et al [ 4 , 8 , 9 ] also found that vection latency was significantly shorter in children than young adults. The current study suggests a gradual increase in vection latency extending throughout the lifespan.…”

“…Our results suggest that the efficacy of vection increases with age, consistent with Paige’s finding for circular vection [ 56 ]. In conflict with this conclusion, Shirai et al [ 4 , 8 , 9 ] reported that vection magnitude and saturation decreased with age from childhood to young adulthood. It is likely that this difference is because visual odometry reflects the direct accumulation of self-motion information and is probably unrelated to conventional vection magnitude scales [ 12 ].…”

“…This is consistent with postural sway studies suggesting that children overly emphasize vision in self-motion perception. While postural sway seems to resemble the adult pattern by 7–10 years [ 5 – 7 ], Shirai and colleagues [ 8 , 9 ] found that older children (13–15 years) also experienced stronger vection than young adults (20–22 years). This is consistent with other evidence that while sway responses to visual motion reach adult levels early in childhood, sensory integration in the face of cue conflict continues to develop [ 10 ] as does sensitivity to vection [ 11 ].…”