Age-related changes in visual search: manipulation of colour cues based on cone contrast and opponent modulation space

Shuto Tamura,Keiko Sato

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-78303-4

Abstract

Reduced retinal illuminance affects colour perception in older adults, and studies show that they exhibit deficiencies in yellow-blue (YB) discrimination. However, the influence of colour cues on the visual attention in older individuals remains unclarified. Visual attention refers to the cognitive model by which we prioritise regions within the visual space and selectively process information. The present study aimed to explore the effect of colour on visual search performance in older observers. In our experiment, younger observers wearing glasses with a filter that simulated the spectral transmittance of the aging human lens and older observers performed two types of search tasks, feature search (FS) and conjunction search (CS), under three colour conditions: red-green, YB, and luminance. Targets and distractors were designed on the basis of the Derrington–Krauskopf–Lennie colour representation. In FS tasks, reaction times changed according to colour in all groups, especially under the YB condition, regardless of the presence or absence of distractors. In CS tasks with distractors, older participants and younger participants wearing glasses showed slower responses under chromatic conditions than under the achromatic condition. These results provide preliminary evidence that, for older observers, visual search performance may be affected by impairments in chromatic colour discrimination.

Highlights

Reduced retinal illuminance affects colour perception in older adults, and studies show that they exhibit deficiencies in yellow-blue (YB) discrimination
The feature integration theory (FIT) argues that visual characteristics such as colour and orientation are initially parsed into separate maps in the first stage, and that information from each map is merged in the second stage
The present study aimed to explore the effect of colour on visual search performance among older individuals

Summary

Introduction

Reduced retinal illuminance affects colour perception in older adults, and studies show that they exhibit deficiencies in yellow-blue (YB) discrimination. In CS tasks with distractors, older participants and younger participants wearing glasses showed slower responses under chromatic conditions than under the achromatic condition These results provide preliminary evidence that, for older observers, visual search performance may be affected by impairments in chromatic colour discrimination. In CS, the target shares visual characteristics with the distractors and is designed by the combination of two attributes, resulting in a steep RT/CS slope This is because attention to each item for feature integration is required until the target is identified. When the visual target is a featural singleton, older adults typically exhibit independence between RT and display size, indicating a highly efficient search despite slower overall R T13,14. Older adults experience difficulty in interpreting the cue and setting search parameters when the target varies across tasks[18]

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