Perceptual identification across the life span: a dissociation of early gains and late losses

摘要

The age-correlated gains and losses in visualidentification under backward pattern masking were stud-ied in a representative sample of 226 individuals rangingfrom 6 to 88 years of age. Participants identified maskedsymbols at leisure under high and low stimulus quality andat varying Stimulus Onset Asynchronies. Performanceincreased from childhood to early adulthood and thendecreased, describing the common inverted U-shapedfunction. However, measures of general processing speedaccounted for the gains in childhood and adolescence butnot for losses in older age. This asymmetry between childdevelopment and aging is inconsistent with general-factorlifespan theories of cognitive development and suggeststhat specific mechanisms underlying visual identificationduring child development and aging are different.