Mirror symmetry and aging: The role of stimulus figurality and attention to colour.

Autor: Martinovic J; Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9JZ, UK. Jmartino@ed.ac.uk.; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK. Jmartino@ed.ac.uk., Huber J; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.; University College London, London, UK., Boyanova A; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK., Gheorghiu E; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK., Reuther J; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany., Lemarchand RB; Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9JZ, UK.; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Attention, perception & psychophysics [Atten Percept Psychophys] 2023 Jan; Vol. 85 (1), pp. 99-112. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Sep 29.
DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02565-5
Abstrakt: Symmetry perception studies have generally used two stimulus types: figural and dot patterns. Here, we designed a novel figural stimulus-a wedge pattern-made of centrally aligned pseudorandomly positioned wedges. To study the effect of pattern figurality and colour on symmetry perception, we compared symmetry detection in multicoloured wedge patterns with nonfigural dot patterns in younger and older adults. Symmetry signal was either segregated or nonsegregated by colour, and the symmetry detection task was performed under two conditions: with or without colour-based attention. In the first experiment, we compared performance for colour-symmetric patterns that varied in the number of wedges (24 vs. 36) and number of colours (2 vs. 3) and found that symmetry detection was facilitated by attention to colour when symmetry and noise signals were segregated by colour. In the second experiment, we compared performance for wedge and dot patterns on a sample of younger and older participants. Effects of attention to colour in segregated stimuli were magnified for wedge compared with dot patterns, with older and younger adults showing different effects of attention to colour on performance. Older adults significantly underperformed on uncued wedge patterns compared with dot patterns, but their performance improved greatly through colour cueing, reaching performance levels similar to young participants. Thus, while confirming the age-related decline in symmetry detection, we found that this deficit could be alleviated in figural multicoloured patterns by attending to the colour that carries the symmetry signal.
(© 2022. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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