Rochester Institute of Technology, Center for Imaging Science, Rochester, NY, 14620, USA.
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14642, USA.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 12;14(1):27693. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-78645-3.
There is a critical need to understand how aging visual systems contribute to age-related increases in vehicle accidents. We investigated the potential contribution of age-related detriments in steering based on optic flow, a source of information known to play a role in navigation control. Seventeen younger adults (mean age: 21.1 years) and thirteen older adults (mean age: 57.3 years) performed a virtual reality steering task. The virtual environment depicted movement at 19 m/s along a winding road. Participants were tasked with maintaining a central lane position while experiencing eight repetitions of each combination of optic flow density (low, medium, high), turn radius (35, 55, 75 m), and turn direction (left, right), presented in random order. All participants cut corners, but did so less on turns with rotational flow from distant landmarks and without proximal optic flow. We found no evidence of an interaction between age and optic flow density, although older adults cut corners more on all turns. An exploratory gaze analysis revealed no age-related differences in gaze behavior. The lack of age-related differences in steering or gaze behavior as a function of optic flow implies that processing of naturalistic optic flow stimuli when steering may be preserved with age.
人们迫切需要了解衰老的视觉系统如何导致与年龄相关的车辆事故增加。我们研究了基于光流的转向潜在的年龄相关性损害，因为光流是一种已知在导航控制中起作用的信息来源。17 名年轻成年人（平均年龄：21.1 岁）和 13 名老年成年人（平均年龄：57.3 岁）进行了虚拟现实转向任务。虚拟环境以 19 米/秒的速度描绘了蜿蜒道路上的运动。参与者的任务是在经历了每种光流密度（低、中、高）、转弯半径（35、55、75 米）和转弯方向（左、右）的 8 次重复后，保持在中心车道位置，所有组合均以随机顺序呈现。所有参与者都拐弯，但在有来自远处地标和无近端光流的旋转流的转弯中拐弯较少。虽然老年人在所有转弯中都拐弯较多，但我们没有发现年龄和光流密度之间存在相互作用的证据。一项探索性的注视分析显示，注视行为在年龄上没有差异。转向时对自然光流刺激的处理可能随年龄增长而保持，这意味着转向时的光流与年龄无关的 Steering 或注视行为差异。
