Age-Related Differences in Reading Text Presented with Degraded Contrast

Abstract

Reading is a daily activity for most individuals. Unfortunately, people frequently read in sub-optimal conditions (Charness & Dijkstra, 1999), which can degrade the perceptual quality of the text, such as reading a book in inadequate lighting or reading an electronic display in direct sunlight. Degraded text may affect older adults to a greater extent than younger adults because of age-related vision declines. However, readers may be able to compensate for text that is difficult to perceive by taking advantage of contextual information contained in language. This study examined age differences in this reading strategy, by comparing words that were highly predictable from their sentence context to words that were less predictable. In addition, text was presented in three levels of text/background contrast (high, medium, low) to explore the effects of contrast reduction. The findings of this study have implications for designing printed materials that facilitate reading for older adults.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Charness

Dijkstra

(1999). Age, luminance, and print legibility in homes, offices, and public places. Human Factors, 41(2), 173–193.

Craik

F. I. M.

Byrd

(1982). Aging and cognitive deficits: The role of attentional resources. In Craik

F. I. M.

Trehub

(Eds.), Aging and cognitive processes (pp. 191–211) New York: Plenum.

Daneman

Carpenter

P. A.

(1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Ability, 19, 450–466.

E-Prime 1.0 [Computer software]. (2000). Pittsburgh, PA: Psychology Software Tools.

Hartley

J. T.

(1993). Aging and prose memory: Tests of the resource-deficit hypothesis. Psychology and Aging, 8(4), 538–551.

Kemper

Kemtes

(2000). Aging and message production and comprehension. In Park

D. C.

(Ed.), Cognitive aging: A primer (pp. 197–213) Philadelphia, PA, US: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.

Madden

D. J.

(1988). Adult age differences in the effects of sentence context and stimulus degradation during visual word recognition. Psychology and Aging, 3(2), 167–172.

Mitzner

T. L.

(2002). Effects of reduced contrast on young and older adults' utilization of context during reading. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 45th Annual Meeting..

Pelli

D. G.

Robson

J. G.

Wilkins

A. J.

(1988). The design of a new letter chart for measuring contrast sensitivity. Clinical Vision Sciences 2, 187–199.

10.

Rabinowitz

J. C.

Craik

F. I.

Ackerman

B. P.

(1982). A processing resource account of age differences in recall. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 36(2), 325–344.

11.

Rayner

Well

A. D.

(1996). Effects of contextual constraint on eye movements in reading: A further examination. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 3, 504–509.

12.

Schwanenflugel

P. J.

(1986). Completion norms for final words of sentences using a multiple production measure. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 18(4), 363–371.

13.

Shipley

W. C.

(1986). Shipley Institute of Living Scale. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.

14.

Speranza

Daneman

Schneider

B. A.

(2000). How aging affects the reading of words in noisy backgrounds. Psychology and Aging, 15(2), 253–258.

15.

Wechsler

(1997). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III. (3rd Ed.). San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.

16.

Wingfield

Morrow

Stine E. A. L.

(2000). Language and speech. In Craik

F. I. M.

(Ed.), The handbook of aging and cognition (pp. 359–416) Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc Publishers.