Age Effects on the Perception of Motion Illusions

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p5886 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Billino ◽  
Kai Hamburger ◽  
Karl R Gegenfurtner

Anomalous motion illusions represent a popular class of illusions and several studies have made an effort to explain their perception. However, understanding is still inconsistent. Age-related differences in susceptibility to illusory motion may contribute to further clarification of the underlying processing mechanisms. We investigated the effect of age on the perception of four different anomalous motion illusions. The Enigma illusion, the Rotating-Snakes illusion, the Pinna illusion, and the Rotating-Tilted-Lines illusion were tested on a total of one hundred and thirty-nine participants covering an age range from 3 to 82 years. In comparison with young adults, children showed a lower likelihood of perceiving motion in all illusions with the exception of the Rotating-Tilted-Lines illusion. For adult subjects, we found significant age effects in the Rotating-Snakes illusion and the Rotating-Tilted-Lines illusion: occurrence of the illusory effect decreased with age. The other two illusions turned out to be unaffected by aging. Finally, inter-correlations between different motion illusions revealed that only the Pinna illusion and the Rotating-Tilted-Lines illusion correlated significantly with each other. The results confirm that anomalous motion illusions should not be considered as a homogeneous group. Possible links between perceptual data and neurophysiological changes related to age are discussed. Perceptual differences due to age provide the opportunity to improve our understanding of illusory motion and point to specific underlying mechanisms.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Treanore ◽  
Etya Amsalem

Abstract In the face of insect declines, identifying phases of the life cycle when insects are particularly vulnerable to mortality is critical to conservation efforts. For numerous annual insect groups, diapause is both a key adaptation that allows survival of inhospitable conditions and a physiologically demanding life stage that can result in high rates of mortality. As bees continue to garner attention as a group experiencing high rates of decline, improving our understanding of how annual bees prepare for diapause and identifying factors that reduce survival is imperative. Here, we studied factors affecting diapause survival length and their underlying mechanisms using an economically and ecologically important annual bee species, Bombus impatiens. We examined how age and mass upon diapause onset correlate with diapause survival length, and the mechanistic role of nutrient acquisition and oxidative stress post pupal eclosion in mediating these effects. Our findings show that both age and mass were strong predictors of diapause survival length. Heavier queens or queens in the age range of ~6–17 days survived longer in diapause. Mass gain was attributed to increases in lipid, protein and glycerol amounts following pupal eclosion, and the ability to deal with oxidative stress was significantly compromised in older pre-diapause queens. Our results demonstrate that age-related shifts in bee physiology and timing of nutrient acquisition may both be critical factors driving diapause survival.


Author(s):  
Maria Grakhova ◽  
Olga Rychkova ◽  
Anastasia Braun ◽  
Almira Sagitova ◽  
Maria Nesterova

Aim: Identification of age-specific drug intolerance. Materials and methods: The study was conducted over the period from 2017 to 2020 and included 200 outpatient medical history forms of people diagnosed as having an unspecified pathological reaction to a drug or medication. All drug reactions are reported by patients own statements and were allocated to dichotomous variables. The results were analyzed by nonparametric statistics. Results: Three groups of patients: 18-44 years (n=49); 45-60 years (n=60); 61 and over (n=91). The odds of incomprehensible reactions were 2.2 times higher in patients in group 3 than in patients in the other groups. Group 3 patients were 12 times more likely to have an itchy reaction to medications than patients in the other groups. Group 1 patients were 3 times more likely to have urticaria than patients in groups 2 and 3. The odds of drug intolerance to ACE inhibitors were 2.6 times higher in group 3 patients than in patients in other groups. When comparing clinical manifestations of drug intolerance to penicillin- and cephalosporin-type antibiotics, no significant differences were found in all patients. The presence of allergies and somatic pathology of 3 or more systems did not significantly affect the possibility of reactions of varying severity to 3 or more drugs in these groups. Conclusions: Patients age has no effect on the possibility of reactions to certain groups of drugs. The exception was ACE inhibitors, which is most likely due to the higher frequency of prescribing antihypertensive therapy in patients in this age group. The aggravation of clinical manifestations and the occurrence of polypharmacy are not associated with age and comorbid background. It should be noted that correlation between age and non-life-threatening clinical manifestations of drug intolerance was revealed, which indicates the absence of reliable effect of age on the possibility of anaphylactic shock or angioedema.


Author(s):  
Emanuel Bylund

The present chapter discusses age effects in first language (L1) attrition. In particular, focus is placed on the age-related decline in attrition susceptibility, the extent to which age effects be counterbalanced by other factors, and the underlying mechanisms of age effects. In view of extant evidence, it is suggested that the change in heightened attrition susceptibility occurs at around 12 years of age (or puberty) (though this by no means implies that attrition does not occur past puberty). Relatedly, it is suggests that socio-psychological and cognitive factors have greater compensatory potential for prepubescent than postpubescent attriters. As to the underlying mechanisms of age effects, the impediment account, the psychosocial account, and the maturational account are discussed. It is suggested that out of these, the maturational account has the greatest explanatory potential. The chapter concludes with a number of testable principles of age effects on L1 attrition.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune Boen ◽  
Daniel S Quintana ◽  
Cecile Ladouceur ◽  
Christian K. Tamnes

The error-related negativity (ERN) and the error positivity (Pe) are electrophysiological components associated with error processing that are thought to exhibit distinctive developmental trajectories from childhood to adulthood. To investigate the age and age moderation effects on the ERN and the Pe strength during development, we conducted a preregistered three-level meta-analysis synthesizing 120 and 41 effect sizes across 18 group comparison studies and 19 correlational studies, respectively. The meta-analysis included studies with mean age range between 3.6 to 28.7 years for age-group comparisons and 6.1 to 18.7 years for age correlations. Results showed that age was associated with a more negative ERN (SMD = -.433, r = -.230). No statistically significant association between age and the Pe was found (SMD = .059, r = -.091), except for in a group comparison between younger and older adolescents. The age effects were not significantly moderated by whether a Flanker or a Go/No-Go task was used, whereas studies that used other tasks found larger age effects on the Pe. There was a moderating effect of electrode site, whereby the Fz and Cz electrode sites yielded stronger negative associations between age and the ERN and the Pe, respectively. The results confirm that the ERN and the Pe show differential development courses and suggest that sample and methodological characteristics influence the age effects, and lay the foundation for investigations of developmental patterns of error processing in relation to psychopathology and early genetic and environmental risk factors.


1992 ◽  
Vol 71 (12) ◽  
pp. 1891-1894 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.J. Smith ◽  
K. Joshipura ◽  
R. Kent ◽  
M.A. Taubman

Stimulated lower labial (LLGF) and parotid salivary volumes and IgG, IgA, and IgM concentrations were measured in 264 subjects whose ages ranged from 17 to 76 years. A significant (p <0.001) age-related decline in LLGF output was observed for subjects over this age range. Sixty-three percent of the subjects in the 18-20-year-old group (n = 46) secreted at least 10 μL of labial saliva in a 7- 10-minute period, while approximately 70% of the subjects in the two oldest groups (61-70 and 71-76 years old) secreted less than 1 μL of LLGF during this time period (n = 64). No significant gender-based differences occurred in the volumes of labial saliva secreted. Stimulated parotid salivary flow showed no age-related trend in these subjects. Lower labial gland salivary IgA concentrations in an older population (mean age ± SD = 55.6 yr ± 1.3) were significantly lower (p < 0.025) than IgA concentrations in a younger population (20.7 yr ±0.8), when IgA was expressed as μg/mL LLGF collected. Immunoglobulin A concentrations in parotid saliva and IgG and IgM concentrations in labial and parotid saliva were not significantly different when the two age populations were compared. These data suggest that the physiological and immunological potential of labial gland saliva may decrease with age.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 1686
Author(s):  
Adelaida M. Celaya ◽  
Lourdes Rodríguez-de la Rosa ◽  
Jose M. Bermúdez-Muñoz ◽  
José M. Zubeldia ◽  
Carlos Romá-Mateo ◽  
...  

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) deficiency is an ultrarare syndromic human sensorineural deafness. Accordingly, IGF-1 is essential for the postnatal maturation of the cochlea and the correct wiring of hearing in mice. Less severe decreases in human IGF-1 levels have been associated with other hearing loss rare genetic syndromes, as well as with age-related hearing loss (ARHL). However, the underlying mechanisms linking IGF-1 haploinsufficiency with auditory pathology and ARHL have not been studied. Igf1-heterozygous mice express less Igf1 transcription and have 40% lower IGF-1 serum levels than wild-type mice. Along with ageing, IGF-1 levels decreased concomitantly with the increased expression of inflammatory cytokines, Tgfb1 and Il1b, but there was no associated hearing loss. However, noise exposure of these mice caused increased injury to sensory hair cells and irreversible hearing loss. Concomitantly, there was a significant alteration in the expression ratio of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in Igf1+/− mice. Unbalanced inflammation led to the activation of the stress kinase JNK and the failure to activate AKT. Our data show that IGF-1 haploinsufficiency causes a chronic subclinical proinflammatory age-associated state and, consequently, greater susceptibility to stressors. This work provides the molecular bases to further understand hearing disorders linked to IGF-1 deficiency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Bell ◽  
Akashroop Khaira ◽  
Mehak Stokoe ◽  
Megan Webb ◽  
Melanie Noel ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Migraine affects roughly 10% of youth aged 5–15 years, however the underlying mechanisms of migraine in youth are poorly understood. Multiple structural and functional alterations have been shown in the brains of adult migraine sufferers. This study aims to investigate the effects of migraine on resting-state functional connectivity during the period of transition from childhood to adolescence, a critical period of brain development and the time when rates of pediatric chronic pain spikes. Methods Using independent component analysis, we compared resting state network spatial maps and power spectra between youth with migraine aged 7–15 and age-matched controls. Statistical comparisons were conducted using a MANCOVA analysis. Results We show (1) group by age interaction effects on connectivity in the visual and salience networks, group by sex interaction effects on connectivity in the default mode network and group by pubertal status interaction effects on connectivity in visual and frontal parietal networks, and (2) relationships between connectivity in the visual networks and the migraine cycle, and age by cycle interaction effects on connectivity in the visual, default mode and sensorimotor networks. Conclusions We demonstrate that brain alterations begin early in youth with migraine and are modulated by development. This highlights the need for further study into the neural mechanisms of migraine in youth specifically, to aid in the development of more effective treatments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-297
Author(s):  
Aldona Sopata ◽  
Kamil Długosz

AbstractThis article examines the acquisition of German as the weaker language in the cases of German-Polish bilingual children. Focusing on negation and verb position, phenomena that have frequently been taken as diagnostic when distinguishing between the course of language development characteristic for first (L1) and second language acquisition (L2), we analyse experimental and productive data from six simultaneously bilingual children. Due to the constrained input, German is their weaker language. The results in Forced Choice and Grammaticality Judgements tasks are compared with the results of monolingual children. We show that in the area of negation the acquisition of German as the weaker language resembles L1, and in the area of inversion and verb final position the development of the weaker language is delayed. The striking difference between bilinguals’ results in the experimental vs. productive tasks points to specific processing mechanisms in bilingual language use. In narrative contexts of the production tasks the language of the performance is activated, while the other is inhibited, which leads to a target-like performance. Structural properties of the stronger language tend to be activated, however, in the experimental tasks involving the weaker language, resulting in non-target-like responses.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136843022097903
Author(s):  
Alexander P. Landry ◽  
Elliott Ihm ◽  
Jonathan W. Schooler

Metadehumanization, the perception that members of an outgroup dehumanize your group, has been found to exacerbate intergroup conflict by inspiring reciprocal dehumanization of the offending outgroup. Moreover, metadehumanization is distinct from metaprejudice (i.e., the perception that an outgroup hates your group). Given the mutual animosity reported in public opinion polls toward the other side, we believed US–Russia relations would be a worthwhile context in which to extend this model. Therefore, we measured Americans’ levels of metadehumanization and metaprejudice of Russians to determine the association between these perceptions and their hostility toward Russians (Study 1). In this novel intergroup conflict, metadehumanization remained a consequential predictor of outgroup hostility over and above metaprejudice, suggesting that it can exacerbate a broader range of intergroup conflicts than those heretofore examined. Given these findings, we then sought to experimentally differentiate between metadehumanization and metaprejudice. In Study 2, we manipulated both metadehumanization and metaprejudice to (a) determine whether one or both cause greater outgroup hostility and (b) elucidate the underlying mechanisms by which they may produce this effect. Whereas metadehumanization produced greater hostility, metaprejudice did not. Moreover, although both metaperceptions inspired greater prejudice, only metadehumanization led to greater dehumanization. We conclude that metadehumanization may be a particularly potent fomenter of hostility because it inspires reciprocal dehumanization over and above more general negative bias.


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