Aging and curvature discrimination from static and dynamic touch

Two experiments evaluated the ability of 30 older and younger adults to discriminate the curvature of simple object surfaces from static and dynamic touch. The ages of the older adults ranged from 66 to 85 years, while those of the younger adults ranged from 20 to 29 years. For each participant in b...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-07, Vol.8 (7), p.e68577-e68577
Main Authors: Norman, J Farley, Kappers, Astrid M L, Cheeseman, Jacob R, Ronning, Cecilia, Thomason, Kelsey E, Baxter, Michael W, Calloway, Autum B, Lamirande, Davora N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abnormalities
Adult
Adults
Age
Age factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Aging
Aging - physiology
Analysis
Analysis of Variance
Biology
Capsicum annuum
Comparative analysis
Curvature
Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology
Experiments
Fingers & toes
Fingers - physiology
Handbooks
Human performance
Humans
Information sources
Judgment
Judgments
Medicine
Middle Aged
Older people
Physiological aspects
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Sensory Thresholds - physiology
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Spine
Stereognosis - physiology
Surface Properties
Tactile stimuli
Thresholds
Touch
Touch - physiology
Young Adult
Young adults
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Two experiments evaluated the ability of 30 older and younger adults to discriminate the curvature of simple object surfaces from static and dynamic touch. The ages of the older adults ranged from 66 to 85 years, while those of the younger adults ranged from 20 to 29 years. For each participant in both experiments, the minimum curvature magnitude needed to reliably discriminate between convex and concave surfaces was determined. In Experiment 1, participants used static touch to make their judgments of curvature, while dynamic touch was used in Experiment 2. When static touch was used to discriminate curvature, a large effect of age occurred (the thresholds were 0.67 & 1.11/m for the younger and older participants, respectively). However, when participants used dynamic touch, there was no significant difference between the ability of younger and older participants to discriminate curvature (the thresholds were 0.58 & 0.59/m for the younger and older participants, respectively). The results of the current study demonstrate that while older adults can accurately discriminate surface curvature from dynamic touch, they possess significant impairments for static touch.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0068577