Contrast sensitivity, healthy aging and noise

•External noise paradigms produce different outcomes with local-static and broad-dynamic noise.•External noise paradigms should use broad-dynamic noise, which is like internal noise.•Previous studies using local-static noise to investigate age-related contrast sensitivity losses are reassessed.•Healthy aging affects the calculation efficiency of the detection processing at high but not at low spatial frequencies.

At least three studies have used external noise paradigms to investigate the cause of contrast sensitivity losses due to healthy aging. These studies have used noise that was spatiotemporally localized on the target. Yet, Allard and Cavanagh (2011) have recently shown that the processing strategy can change with localized noise thereby violating the noise-invariant processing assumption and compromising the application of external noise paradigms. The present study reassessed the cause of age-related contrast sensitivity losses using spatiotemporally extended external noise (i.e., full-screen, continuously displayed dynamic noise). Contrast thresholds were measured for young (mean = 24 years) and older adults (mean = 69 years) at 3 spatial frequencies (1, 3 and 9 cpd) and 3 noise conditions (noise-free, local noise and extended noise). At the two highest spatial frequencies, the results were similar with local and extended noise: the sensitivity loss was mainly due to lower calculation efficiency. At the lowest spatial frequency, age-related contrast sensitivity losses were attributed to the internal equivalent noise when using extended noise and, like in previous studies, due to calculation efficiency with local noise. These results show that the interpretation of external noise paradigms can drastically differ depending on the noise type suggesting that external nose paradigms should use external noise that is spatiotemporally extended like internal noise to avoid triggering a processing strategy change. Contrary to previous studies, we conclude that healthy aging does not affect the calculation efficiency of the detection process at low spatial frequencies.