ORCA: A picture database of object-scene arrangements for cross-cultural and aging research

Abstract

In recent years, cross-cultural research on the modulation of basic cognitive processes by culture has intensifed – also from an aging perspective. Despite this increased research interest, only a few cross-culturally normed non-verbal stimulus sets are available to support cross-cultural cognitive research in younger and older adults. Here we present the ORCA (Ofcial Rating of Complex Arrangements) picture database, which includes a total of 720 object–scene compositions sorted into 180 quadruples (e.g., two diferent helmets placed in two diferent deserts). Each quadruple contains visually and semantically matched pairs of objects and pairs of scenes with varying degrees of semantic ft between objects and scenes. A total of 95 younger and older German and Chinese adults rated every object–scene pair on object familiarity and semantic ft between object and scene. While the ratings were signifcantly correlated between cultures and age groups, small but signifcant culture and age diferences emerged. Object familiarity was higher for older adults than younger adults and for German participants than for Chinese participants. Semantic ft was rated lower by German older adults and Chinese younger adults as compared to German younger adults and Chinese older adults. Due to the large number of stimuli, our database is particularly well suited for cognitive and neuroscientifc research on cross-cultural and age-related diferences in perception, attention, and memory.