title: Saccadic eye movements: what do they tell us about aging cognition?
abstract: Although the relationship between age-related cognitive decline and saccadic eye movement (SEM) deficits has been outlined, specific cognitive alterations underlying age-related changes in saccadic performance remain unclear. This study attempted to better understand the nature of aging effects on SEMs. We compared SEMs in younger and older adults in prosaccade (PS) and antisaccade (AS) tasks under gap, step, and overlap conditions. We also examined relationships between these performances and several neuropsychological scores. Twenty-eight younger adults (YA), 24 older adults under 65 years (OA<65) and 24 over 65 years (OA>65) of age completed a neuropsychological evaluation, PS and AS tasks. Our results showed that latencies, AS cost, time to correct AS errors, and uncorrected AS, increased with aging. YA showed higher overlap effects than OA>65and OA<65. Importantly, correlations and regressions revealed close relationships not only between latencies and processing speed measures but also between the AS cost and the inhibition process measures. Correct saccades and the time to correct AS errors were closely related to the inhibition process and cognitive flexibility measures. These findings suggest that the progressive age-related decline of processing speed and executive attention are associated with, and can be highlighted though SEMs in PS and AS tasks.
authors.affiliation: a Laboratoire de Psychologie EA-3188 , Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté , Besançon , France.|b Centre Mémoire de Ressources et de Recherche (CMRR) , Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire (CHRU) Jean Minjoz , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Noiret
authors.affiliation: a Laboratoire de Psychologie EA-3188 , Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Blanche
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vigneron
authors.affiliation: a Laboratoire de Psychologie EA-3188 , Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Marine
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Diogo
authors.affiliation: b Centre Mémoire de Ressources et de Recherche (CMRR) , Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire (CHRU) Jean Minjoz , Besançon , France.|c Laboratoire de Neurosciences EA-481 , Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vandel
authors.affiliation: a Laboratoire de Psychologie EA-3188 , Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté , Besançon , France.|d Maison des Sciences de l'Homme et de l'Environnement (UMSR-3124) , CNRS & Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté , Besançon , France.
authors.forename: Éric
authors.initials: É
authors.lastname: Laurent
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012438:Saccades
keywords: Eye tracking; attention; elderly; processing speed; working memory