College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology, University of Leicester , United Kingdom.
PeerJ. 2013 Apr 9;1:e63. doi: 10.7717/peerj.63. Print 2013.
Objectives. Sensitivity to spatial frequencies changes with age and this may have profound effects on reading. But how the actual contributions to reading performance made by the spatial frequency content of text differs between young (18-30 years) and older (65+ years) adults remains to be fully determined. Accordingly, we manipulated the spatial frequency content of text and used eye movement measures to assess the effects on reading performance in both age groups. Method. Sentences were displayed as normal or filtered to contain only very low, low, medium, high, or very high spatial frequencies. Reading time and eye movements were recorded as participants read each sentence. Results. Both age groups showed good overall reading ability and high levels of comprehension. However, for young adults, normal performance was impaired only by low and very low spatial frequencies, whereas normal performance for older adults was impaired by all spatial frequencies but least of all by medium. Conclusion. While both young and older adults read and comprehended well, reading ability was supported by different spatial frequencies in each age group. Thus, although spatial frequency sensitivity can change with age, adaptive responses to this change can help maintain reading performance in later life.
目的。随着年龄的增长，对空间频率的敏感性会发生变化，这可能会对阅读产生深远的影响。但是，文本的空间频率内容对年轻（18-30 岁）和老年（65+岁）成年人阅读表现的实际贡献有何不同，仍有待充分确定。因此，我们操纵了文本的空间频率内容，并使用眼动测量来评估这对两个年龄组阅读表现的影响。方法。句子显示为正常或过滤，仅包含非常低、低、中、高或非常高的空间频率。参与者阅读每个句子时，记录阅读时间和眼动。结果。两个年龄组的整体阅读能力和理解水平都很高。然而，对于年轻成年人来说，只有低和非常低的空间频率才会损害正常表现，而对于老年成年人来说，所有空间频率都会损害正常表现，但中频受影响最小。结论。尽管年轻和老年成年人的阅读和理解能力都很好，但每个年龄组的阅读能力都依赖于不同的空间频率。因此，尽管空间频率敏感性会随年龄增长而变化，但对此变化的适应性反应可以帮助老年人在以后的生活中保持阅读能力。
