Abstract
Sensitivity to certain spatial frequencies declines with age and this may have profound effects on reading performance. However, the spatial frequency content of text actually used by older adults (aged 65+), and how this differs from that used by young adults (aged 18-30), remains to be determined. To investigate this issue, the eye movement behavior of young and older adult readers was assessed using a gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm in which text was shown normally within a region centered at the point of gaze, whereas text outside this region was filtered to contain only low, medium, or high spatial frequencies. For young adults, reading times were affected by spatial frequency content when windows of normal text extended up to nine characters wide. Within this processing region, the reading performance of young adults was affected little when text outside the window contained either only high or medium spatial frequencies, but was disrupted substantially when text contained only low spatial frequencies. By contrast, the reading performance of older adults was affected by spatial frequency content when windows extended up to 18 characters wide. Moreover, within this extended processing region, reading performance was disrupted when text contained any one band of spatial frequencies, but was disrupted most of all when text contained only high spatial frequencies. These findings indicate that older adults are sensitive to the spatial frequency content of text from a much wider region than young adults, and rely much more than young adults on coarse-scale components of text when reading.
Highlights
The ability to read is of fundamental importance for people to function effectively in everyday life
These differences were investigated by assessing the reading performance of young and older adults in a gazecontingent moving-window paradigm that used symmetrical moving windows in which text within each window was shown normally and text outside each window was filtered so that it contained only sparse spatial frequency content
The older readers in our study showed good visual abilities when tested, their reading abilities still showed lowered sensitivity to the fine-scale information in text associated with normal aging
Summary
The ability to read is of fundamental importance for people to function effectively in everyday life. A progressive change in visual abilities occurs with normal aging and appears predominantly as a decline in sensitivity for fine-scale visual information (e.g., Derefelt, Lennerstrand, & Lundh, 1979; Elliott, 1987; Elliott et al, 1995; Higgins, Jaffe, Caruso, & deMonasterio, 1988; Owsley, Sekuler, Siemsen, 1983; for a recent review, see Owsley, 2011) This loss of sensitivity to information supplied by higher spatial frequencies is widely attributed to a combination of optical changes and changes in neural transmission with increasing age, but the precise effect of these changes on older adults’ reading ability is unknown. The findings suggest that young and older adults differ in their use of the visual information present in text at particular locations around the point of gaze
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