Li L, Li S, Wang J, McGowan VA, Liu P, Jordan TR, Paterson KB. Aging and the optimal viewing position effect in visual word recognition: Evidence from English.
Psychol Aging 2017;
32:367-376. [PMID:
28406653 PMCID:
PMC5459221 DOI:
10.1037/pag0000163]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
Abstract
Words are recognized most efficiently by young adults when fixated at an optimal viewing position (OVP), which for English is between a word’s beginning and middle letters. How this OVP effect changes with age is unknown but may differ for older adults due to visual declines in later life. Accordingly, a lexical decision experiment was conducted in which short (5-letter) and long (9-letter) words were fixated at various letter positions. The older adults produced slower responses. But, crucially, effects of fixation location for each word-length did not differ substantially across age groups, indicating that OVP effects are preserved in older age.
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