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Seeing What We Know, Knowing What We See: Challenging the Limits of Visual Acuity

Abstract  

Ageism has resulted in overstated expectations regarding the inevitable deterioration in human capabilities, such as visual
perception, with age (Rowe and Kahn in Science, 237, 143–149, 1987; Grant in Health and Social Work, 21, 9–15, 1996). Human visual perception, however, is of a largely constructive nature, evidenced in the complementary interactions between
top-down inputs (e.g., expectations) and bottom-up stimuli (Engel et al. in National Review of Neuroscience, 2(10), 704–716,
2001; Miller and Cohen in, Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167-202, 2001). Based on this constructive nature, we hypothesized that visual perception may be better than is typically expected. In
three experiments, we demonstrated the malleability of visual acuity using a conditioning procedure involving manipulations
in bottom-up stimuli. Experimental groups read a book excerpt with one letter in decreased font size, while the control groups
read the same book excerpt with all letters in the same font size. Experiment 1 (N = 112) examined whether visual acuity could be enhanced for a specific letter. Experiment 2 (N = 70) assessed whether visual acuity could be enhanced for a non-conditioned letter, while Experiment 3 (N = 108) evaluated whether the visual conditioning effects would transfer to all non-conditioned letters. Visual acuity for
experimental groups was significantly better than that in the control groups, speaking to the general malleability of our
visual sense.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 1-7
  • DOI 10.1007/s10804-011-9132-0
  • Authors
    • Michael Pirson, Fordham University/Harvard University, 1790 Broadway, 1147, New York, NY 10019, USA
    • Amanda Ie, Psychology Department, Harvard University, William James Hall 1346, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
    • Ellen Langer, Psychology Department, Harvard University, William James Hall 1340, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
    • Journal Journal of Adult Development
    • Online ISSN 1573-3440
    • Print ISSN 1068-0667
Posted in: Journal Article Abstracts on 03/28/2012 | Link to this post on IFP |
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