Saccadic eye movement rate during non-visual cognitive tasks in the aged
Item
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Title
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Saccadic eye movement rate during non-visual cognitive tasks in the aged
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:f80e592931eb:12050
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identifier
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12751
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Creator
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Sousa, Amber,
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Contributor
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Howard Ehrlichman
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology | Neurosciences | Cognitive psychology | memory | saccadic eye movements
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Abstract
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This study examined saccadic eye movement rate during non-visual cognitive tasks in individuals over age 70. Research in the area of saccadic eye movement rate (EMR) has traditionally been carried out in young adult populations and has shows that people have higher EMR during tasks requiring retrieval from long term memory and lower EMR during tasks requiring the use of working memory. The current research examined EMR during long-term memory retrieval tasks and working memory tasks. We found that saccadic EMR patterns were preserved in older individuals, with significantly higher EMR during tasks requiring long-term memory retrieval and lower EMR during working memory tasks. However, EMRs were lower in general for older individuals and showed a decline over age groups such that by ages 90 to 101, EMR during fluency tasks was half that of EMR for young adults. We also found that elders with significant self-report of depressive symptoms exhibited significantly lower EMR on non-visual cognitive tasks. There was no relationship found between EMR and general cognitive ability or subjective memory decline as measured by the Dementia Rating Scale-II and the Metamemory in Adulthood-Abridged Change Scale respectively. There were no relationships found between performance on cognitive tasks (verbal fluency and episodic memory) and EMR during the same task. Our results suggest that EMR during non-visual tasks changes in older adulthood. This change does not appear to be related to general cognitive ability or specific task performance.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
