Our experiments explore whether contour processing of closed shapes is altered by healthy aging. Contour processing was measured using a closed contour (circle or ellipse) constructed of Gabor elements. The contour was presented either on a blank background or embedded in noise (identical Gabor elements of random orientation). Twenty-one older (age range: 61-80 years) and 21 younger (age range:...

Using scaled-particle theory for binary mixtures of two-dimensional hard particles with orientational degrees of freedom, we analyze the stability of phases with orientational order and the demixing phase behavior of a variety of mixtures. Our study is focused on cases where at least one of the components consists of hard rectangles, or a particular case of these, hard squares. A pure fluid of ...

We present a study of connectivity percolation in suspensions of hard spherocylinders by means of Monte Carlo simulation and connectedness percolation theory. We focus attention on polydispersity in the length, the diameter, and the connectedness criterion, and we invoke bimodal, Gaussian, and Weibull distributions for these. The main finding from our simulations is that the percolation thresho...