Does empirical evidence from healthy aging studies predict a practical difference between visualizations for different age groups?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether empirical aging data from psychophysics can predict practical differences in visualizations across age groups. It builds a quantitative model, grounded in contrast-sensitivity measurements, to delineate age-dependent visible spatial-frequency ranges at fixed display contrasts. The authors demonstrate how this model yields concrete design guidance (e.g., avoiding frequencies above $8$ cycles per degree at $C=0.01$ and using $C\geq 0.02$ for universal visibility) and illustrate implications with Vizent glyphs and heatmap visuals. While the approach offers a principled bridge between perception science and visualization design, it also highlights the need for broader empirical validation across devices, environments, and real-world content.

Abstract

When communicating critical information to decision-makers, one of the major challenges in visualization is whether the communication is affected by different perceptual or cognitive abilities, one major influencing factor is age. We review both visualization and psychophysics literature to understand where quantitative evidence exists on age differences in visual perception. Using contrast sensitivity data from the literature we show how the differences between visualizations for different age groups can be predicted using a new model of visible frequency range with age. The model assumed that at threshold values some visual data will not be visible to older people (spatial frequency > 2 and contrast <=0.01). We apply this result to a practical visualization and show an example that at higher levels of contrast, the visual signal should be perceivable by all viewers over 20. Universally usable visualization should use a contrast of 0.02 or higher and be designed to avoid spatial frequencies greater than eight cycles per degree to accommodate all ages. There remains much research to do on to translate psychophysics results to practical quantitative guidelines for visualization producers.

Figures (11)

• Figure 1: Spatial frequency vs Contrast: examples with Gabor patches.
• Figure 2: Owsley et al. empirically evaluated the mean contrast sensitivity at each frequency step by age group, figure redrawn from OSS83.
• Figure 3: Contrast Sensitivity to Spatial Frequency: any visual signal above the 0.01 line is visible, and the range of signal frequency content visible varies with age group.
• Figure 4: The lower and upper bounds of visible Spatial Frequency with Age at a fixed contrast of 0.01, signals with spatial frequencies within the visible area should be visible.
• Figure 5: Over the age of 65 and into the 70s and 80s a signal of 4 cycles per degree at a contrast of 0.01 falls out of the visible area and would not normally be discernable by that age group.