The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field
Purpose.: Crowding describes the increased difficulty in identifying a target object when it is surrounded by nearby objects (flankers). A recent study investigated the effect of age on visual crowding and found equivocal results: Although crowded visual acuity was worse in older participants, crowd...
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| Format: | Article |
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ARVO
2014
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37851/ |
| _version_ | 1848795546975731712 |
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| author | Astle, Andrew T. Blighe, Alan J. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V. |
| author_facet | Astle, Andrew T. Blighe, Alan J. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V. |
| author_sort | Astle, Andrew T. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Purpose.: Crowding describes the increased difficulty in identifying a target object when it is surrounded by nearby objects (flankers). A recent study investigated the effect of age on visual crowding and found equivocal results: Although crowded visual acuity was worse in older participants, crowding expressed as a ratio did not change with age. However, the spatial extent of crowding is a better index of crowding effects and remains unknown. In the present study, we used established psychophysical methods to characterize the effect of age on visual crowding (magnitude and extent) in a letter recognition task.
Methods.: Letter recognition thresholds were determined for three different flanker separations in 54 adults (aged 18–76 years) with normal vision. Additionally, the spatial extent of crowding was established by measuring spacing thresholds: the flanker-to-target separation required to produce a given reduction in performance. Uncrowded visual acuity, crowded visual acuity, and spacing thresholds were expressed as a function of age, avoiding arbitrary categorization of young and old participants.
Results.: Our results showed that uncrowded and crowded visual acuities do not change significantly as a function of age. Furthermore, spacing thresholds did not change with age and approximated Bouma's law (half eccentricity).
Conclusions.: These data show that crowding in adults is unaffected by senescence and provide additional evidence for distinct neural mechanisms mediating surround suppression and visual crowding, since the former shows a significant age effect. Finally, our data suggest that the well-documented age-related decline in peripheral reading ability is not due to age-related changes in visual crowding. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:33:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-37851 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:33:49Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | ARVO |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-378512020-05-04T16:51:52Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37851/ The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field Astle, Andrew T. Blighe, Alan J. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V. Purpose.: Crowding describes the increased difficulty in identifying a target object when it is surrounded by nearby objects (flankers). A recent study investigated the effect of age on visual crowding and found equivocal results: Although crowded visual acuity was worse in older participants, crowding expressed as a ratio did not change with age. However, the spatial extent of crowding is a better index of crowding effects and remains unknown. In the present study, we used established psychophysical methods to characterize the effect of age on visual crowding (magnitude and extent) in a letter recognition task. Methods.: Letter recognition thresholds were determined for three different flanker separations in 54 adults (aged 18–76 years) with normal vision. Additionally, the spatial extent of crowding was established by measuring spacing thresholds: the flanker-to-target separation required to produce a given reduction in performance. Uncrowded visual acuity, crowded visual acuity, and spacing thresholds were expressed as a function of age, avoiding arbitrary categorization of young and old participants. Results.: Our results showed that uncrowded and crowded visual acuities do not change significantly as a function of age. Furthermore, spacing thresholds did not change with age and approximated Bouma's law (half eccentricity). Conclusions.: These data show that crowding in adults is unaffected by senescence and provide additional evidence for distinct neural mechanisms mediating surround suppression and visual crowding, since the former shows a significant age effect. Finally, our data suggest that the well-documented age-related decline in peripheral reading ability is not due to age-related changes in visual crowding. ARVO 2014-08-31 Article PeerReviewed Astle, Andrew T., Blighe, Alan J., Webb, Ben S. and McGraw, Paul V. (2014) The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, 55 (8). pp. 5039-5045. ISSN 1552-5783 Crowding Aging Visual acuity Critical spacing Reading http://dx.doi.org/10.1167/iovs.14-14181 doi:10.1167/iovs.14-14181 doi:10.1167/iovs.14-14181 |
| spellingShingle | Crowding Aging Visual acuity Critical spacing Reading Astle, Andrew T. Blighe, Alan J. Webb, Ben S. McGraw, Paul V. The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| title | The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| title_full | The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| title_fullStr | The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| title_full_unstemmed | The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| title_short | The effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| title_sort | effect of aging on crowded letter recognition in the peripheral visual field |
| topic | Crowding Aging Visual acuity Critical spacing Reading |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37851/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37851/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/37851/ |