scholarly journals Aging and Pattern Complexity Effects on the Visual Span: Evidence from Chinese Character Recognition

Vision ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Xie ◽  
Lin Li ◽  
Sainan Zhao ◽  
Jingxin Wang ◽  
Kevin Paterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Character Recognition ◽  
Reading Speed ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Chinese Characters ◽  
High Complexity ◽  
Pattern Complexity ◽  
Visual Span ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
Age Related

Research suggests that pattern complexity (number of strokes) limits the visual span for Chinese characters, and that this may have important consequences for reading. With the present research, we investigated age differences in the visual span for Chinese characters by presenting trigrams of low, medium or high complexity at various locations relative to a central point to young (18–30 years) and older (60+ years) adults. A sentence reading task was used to assess their reading speed. The results showed that span size was smaller for high complexity stimuli compared to low and medium complexity stimuli for both age groups, replicating previous findings with young adult participants. Our results additionally showed that this influence of pattern complexity was greater for the older than younger adults, such that while there was little age difference in span size for low and medium complexity stimuli, span size for high complexity stimuli was almost halved in size for the older compared to the young adults. Finally, our results showed that span size correlated with sentence reading speed, confirming previous findings taken as evidence that the visual span imposes perceptual limits on reading speed. We discuss these findings in relation to age-related difficulty reading Chinese.

scholarly journals Age Differences in the Required Coefficient of Friction During Level Walking Do Not Exist When Experimentally-Controlling Speed and Step Length

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis E. Anderson ◽  
Christopher T. Franck ◽  
Michael L. Madigan
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Coefficient Of Friction ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Step Length ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Independent Effects ◽  
Positive Effect

The effects of gait speed and step length on the required coefficient of friction (COF) confound the investigation of age-related differences in required COF. The goals of this study were to investigate whether age differences in required COF during self-selected gait persist when experimentally-controlling speed and step length, and to determine the independent effects of speed and step length on required COF. Ten young and 10 older healthy adults performed gait trials under five gait conditions: self-selected, slow and fast speeds without controlling step length, and slow and fast speeds while controlling step length. During self-selected gait, older adults walked with shorter step lengths and exhibited a lower required COF. Older adults also exhibited a lower required COF when walking at a controlled speed without controlling step length. When both age groups walked with the same speed and step length, no age difference in required COF was found. Thus, speed and step length can have a large influence on studies investigating age-related differences in required COF. It was also found that speed and step length have independent and opposite effects on required COF, with step length having a strong positive effect on required COF, and speed having a weaker negative effect.

scholarly journals Understanding associative false memories in aging using multivariate analyses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Dennis ◽  
Amy A. Overman ◽  
Catherine M. Carpenter ◽  
Courtney R. Gerver
Keyword(s):  
Associative Memory ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
False Memories ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Pattern Similarity ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Parietal Cortices

Associative memory declines in aging arise, in part, from age-related increases in false memories to recombined lures. Studies have shown that there is a benefit to associative memory if the configural context of associative pairs is maintained from encoding to retrieval. The current study aimed to examine whether this benefit of contextual congruency is reduced in aging, and whether the neural similarity of memory representations between targets and lures underlies age- related increases in false memories. Behaviorally, both age groups benefited from target pairs presented in a visual format that was congruent with how the pair was learned. While no age difference was observed in hits, the typical age-related increase in false alarms was found. Congruent with behavioral results, neither the relationship between target-related patterns of neural activity across memory phases (as measured by ERS) nor the discriminability of target classification as a function of condition at retrieval (as measured by MVPA). However, with regard to false memories, older adults exhibited overall lower pattern similarity for hits and FAs compared to hits and CRs (as measured by RSA). Additionally, Hit-FA RSA correlated with age- related increases in associative FAs across visual, frontal, and parietal cortices. Results suggest that while neural processes supporting associative memory retrieval are dependent on configural congruency between encoding and retrieval, there is no difference as to how congruency affects these processes in aging. Additionally, similarity of target and lure processing may reflect reduced diagnosticity of information processing in aging.

scholarly journals Age Difference in Social Discounting: Generous Level Also Makes a Difference

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 413-413
Author(s):  
Hongmei Lin ◽  
Xin Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Social Discounting ◽  
Gain And Loss

Abstract Social discounting refers to the phenomenon that individuals’ generous behaviors decline as the social distance increases. But little is known how age could influence social discounting. The present study aimed at a more comprehensive understanding of age-related differences in social discounting. Moreover, as previous studies suggested that older adults are more loss aversion, we would also test whether framing (gain vs loss) could influence social discounting between two age groups. A mixed-model factorial design of 2 (age group: younger vs. older adults) × 2 (framing: gain vs. loss) × 2 (generous level: low vs. high) × 8 (social distance) was conducted, with a total of 78 younger adults and 82 older adults. A significant social distance × age interaction was found, which replicated previous studies suggesting that older adults are more generous toward socially distant others. Interestingly, a significant age × framing × generous interaction was also found, such that in low generous condition, older adults tend to be more generous than younger adults under both gain and loss framing, while such age difference disappeared in high generous condition. These findings indicate that generous level has a positive impact on people social discounting, inducing younger adults to get more generous. Contrary to our expectation, the framing of gain and loss seems not to wave individuals’ social discounting. It seems that people think more seriously about the amount of allocation rather than framing.

scholarly journals Age-related changes in the visual span, crowding and reading speed

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 1419
Author(s):  
Rong Liu ◽  
Bhavika Patel ◽  
MiYoung Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Reading Speed ◽  
Visual Span ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Related Changes

Memory and Attention Test Performance of Young and Elderly Subjects After Retest Practice

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sybille Rockstroh ◽  
Bruno Dietrich ◽  
Rolf Pokorny
Keyword(s):  
Test Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Elderly Subjects ◽  
Age Difference ◽  
Attention Task ◽  
Healthy Elderly ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Young Subjects ◽  
Young And Elderly Subjects

The effects of training on two memory and two attention tasks were investigated in 24 healthy elderly and 23 young subjects. Two training periods, each consisting of four sessions, were performed, and the effects of training were assessed during two test sessions 1 week thereafter. Significant age-related effects at the pretraining test session were found for reaction times to a simple visual stimulus, retrieval time of information from long-term storage, and the speed of focusing attention. In both age groups, performance of the first two tasks was significantly improved by training; however, the age-related effect remained significant after training. In the focused attention task, the age difference at baseline disappeared after training due to an opposite learning trend in young and elderly subjects. Thus, the cognitive performance of elderly subjects could be trained to a large extent. Significant age differences, however, could be decreased only if the test performance of young subjects did not improve.

scholarly journals Revealing similarities in the perceptual span of young and older Chinese readers

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (8) ◽  
pp. 1189-1205
Author(s):  
Fang Xie ◽  
Victoria A McGowan ◽  
Min Chang ◽  
Lin Li ◽  
Sarah J White ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Aging Effects ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Perceptual Span ◽  
Older Adulthood ◽  
Narrow Region ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Similar Character ◽  
Older Chinese

Older readers (aged 65+ years) of both alphabetic languages and character-based languages like Chinese read more slowly than their younger counterparts (aged 18–30 years). A possible explanation for this slowdown is that, due to age-related visual and cognitive declines, older readers have a smaller perceptual span and so acquire less information on each fixational pause. However, although aging effects on the perceptual span have been investigated for alphabetic languages, no such studies have been reported to date for character-based languages like Chinese. Accordingly, we investigated this issue in three experiments that used different gaze-contingent moving window paradigms to assess the perceptual span of young and older Chinese readers. In these experiments, text was shown either entirely as normal or normal only within a narrow region (window) comprising either the fixated word, the fixated word, and one word to its left, or the fixated word and either one or two words to its right. Characters outside these windows were replaced using a pattern mask (Experiment 1) or a visually similar character (Experiment 2), or blurred to render them unidentifiable (Experiment 3). Sentence reading times were overall longer for the older compared with the younger adults and differed systematically across display conditions. Crucially, however, the effects of display condition were essentially the same across the two age groups, indicating that the perceptual span for Chinese does not differ substantially for the older and young adults. We discuss these findings in relation to other evidence suggesting the perceptual span is preserved in older adulthood.

Age Differences in Eye Movements During Reading: Degenerative Problems or Compensatory Strategy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-311
Author(s):  
José David Moreno ◽  
José A. León ◽  
Lorena A. M. Arnal ◽  
Juan Botella
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Aging Effects ◽  
Movement Data ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Eye Movements During Reading

Abstract. We report the results of a meta-analysis of 22 experiments comparing the eye movement data obtained from young ( Mage = 21 years) and old ( Mage = 73 years) readers. The data included six eye movement measures (mean gaze duration, mean fixation duration, total sentence reading time, mean number of fixations, mean number of regressions, and mean length of progressive saccade eye movements). Estimates were obtained of the typified mean difference, d, between the age groups in all six measures. The results showed positive combined effect size estimates in favor of the young adult group (between 0.54 and 3.66 in all measures), although the difference for the mean number of fixations was not significant. Young adults make in a systematic way, shorter gazes, fewer regressions, and shorter saccadic movements during reading than older adults, and they also read faster. The meta-analysis results confirm statistically the most common patterns observed in previous research; therefore, eye movements seem to be a useful tool to measure behavioral changes due to the aging process. Moreover, these results do not allow us to discard either of the two main hypotheses assessed for explaining the observed aging effects, namely neural degenerative problems and the adoption of compensatory strategies.

Immigrant Youth in Germany

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 158-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Frankenberg ◽  
Katharina Kupper ◽  
Ruth Wagner ◽  
Stephan Bongard
Keyword(s):  
School System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethnic Discrimination ◽  
Emotional And Behavioral Problems ◽  
Sociocultural Adaptation ◽  
Age Related ◽  
German School ◽  
Transcultural Adaptation

This paper reviews research on young migrants in Germany. Particular attention is given to the question of how Germany’s history of migration, immigration policies, and public attitude toward migrants influence the transcultural adaptation of children and adolescents from different ethnic backgrounds. We combine past research with the results of new empirical studies in order to shed light on migrants’ psychological and sociocultural adaptation. Studies comparing young migrants and their German peers in terms of psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and mental health outcome suggest higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems among migrants of most age groups. With regard to adolescent populations between the ages of 14 and 17 years, however, the existence of differences between migrants and natives appears to be less clear. Research has also yielded inconsistent findings regarding the time trajectory of transcultural adaptation among adolescents. The coincidence of acculturation and age-related change is discussed as a possible source of these inconsistencies. Further, we provide an overview of risk and protective factors such as conflicting role expectations and ethnic discrimination, which may cause heightened vulnerability to adverse adaptation outcomes in some groups. Large-scale studies have repeatedly shown migrants of all age groups to be less successful within the German school system, indicating poor sociocultural adaptation. Possible explanations, such as the idiosyncrasies of the German school system, are presented. Our own studies contribute to the understanding of young migrants’ adaptation process by showing that it is their orientation to German culture, rather than the acculturation strategy of integration, that leads to the most positive psychological and sociocultural outcomes. The paper concludes by discussing implications for future cross-cultural research on young migrants and by suggesting recommendations for multicultural policies.

The influence of osteopathic correction on the rate of various rhythms of the body

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. E. Chernikova ◽  
Yu. P. Potekhina
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Respiratory Rate ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Biomechanical Properties ◽  
Dispersion Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Tissues ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Before And After

Introduction. An osteopathic examination determines the rate, the amplitude and the strength of the main rhythms (cardiac, respiratory and cranial). However, there are relatively few studies in the available literature dedicated to the influence of osteopathic correction (OC) on the characteristics of these rhythms.Goal of research — to study the influence of OC on the rate characteristics of various rhythms of the human body.Materials and methods. 88 adult osteopathic patients aged from 18 to 81 years were examined, among them 30 men and 58 women. All patients received general osteopathic examination. The rate of the cranial rhythm (RCR), respiratory rate (RR) heart rate (HR), the mobility of the nervous processes (MNP) and the connective tissue mobility (CTM) were assessed before and after the OC session.Results. Since age varied greatly in the examined group, a correlation analysis of age-related changes of the assessed rhythms was carried out. Only the CTM correlated with age (r=–0,28; p<0,05) in a statistically significant way. The rank dispersion analysis of Kruskal–Wallis also showed statistically significant difference in this indicator in different age groups (p=0,043). With the increase of years, the CTM decreases gradually. After the OC, the CTM, increased in a statistically significant way (p<0,0001). The RCR varied from 5 to 12 cycles/min in the examined group, which corresponded to the norm. After the OC, the RCR has increased in a statistically significant way (p<0,0001), the MNP has also increased (p<0,0001). The initial heart rate in the subjects varied from 56 to 94 beats/min, and in 15 % it exceeded the norm. After the OC the heart rate corresponded to the norm in all patients. The heart rate and the respiratory rate significantly decreased after the OC (р<0,0001).Conclusion. The described biorhythm changes after the OC session may be indicative of the improvement of the nervous regulation, of the normalization of the autonomic balance, of the improvement of the biomechanical properties of body tissues and of the increase of their mobility. The assessed parameters can be measured quickly without any additional equipment and can be used in order to study the results of the OC.

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