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Updated: May 13, 2026
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Gait Analysis of Age-dependent Motor Impairments in Mice with Neurodegeneration
Published on: June 18, 2018
Age-related changes in sensitivity to global speed
Bilyana Genova1, Nadejda Bocheva
1Institute of Neurobiology.
Summary
Older adults show reduced sensitivity to global speed perception compared to younger adults. Increasing standard speed improves motion discrimination, while noise impacts older observers more significantly.
Area of Science:
- Visual perception
- Human psychophysics
- Ageing and vision
Background:
- Motion perception is crucial for daily activities.
- Age-related decline in visual processing is well-documented.
- Understanding factors affecting global speed perception is important for visual neuroscience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how speed magnitude and noise affect global speed perception.
- To compare motion discrimination abilities between younger and older adults.
- To explore the role of temporal noise correlation in age-related differences in motion perception.
Main Methods:
- Participants discriminated the speed of dot stimuli perturbed by time-correlated or -uncorrelated noise.
- Stimuli varied in speed magnitude and noise level.
- Weber fractions were calculated to quantify discrimination sensitivity.
Main Results:
- Sensitivity to global speed improved as the standard speed increased (diminished Weber fractions).
- Older observers consistently exhibited higher discrimination thresholds than younger observers.
- Noise generally did not impact sensitivity, except for older adults at high noise levels.
- Temporal noise correlation differentially affected younger and older observers' performance.
Conclusions:
- Speed magnitude and age significantly influence global speed perception.
- Age-related deficits in motion perception are evident in global speed discrimination.
- Noise and temporal correlations in visual stimuli interact with age to modulate motion perception, suggesting alterations in neural processing.
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