Age Differences in Eye Movements During Reading: Degenerative Problems or Compensatory Strategy?

Abstract

Abstract. We report the results of a meta-analysis of 22 experiments comparing the eye movement data obtained from young ( Mage = 21 years) and old ( Mage = 73 years) readers. The data included six eye movement measures (mean gaze duration, mean fixation duration, total sentence reading time, mean number of fixations, mean number of regressions, and mean length of progressive saccade eye movements). Estimates were obtained of the typified mean difference, d, between the age groups in all six measures. The results showed positive combined effect size estimates in favor of the young adult group (between 0.54 and 3.66 in all measures), although the difference for the mean number of fixations was not significant. Young adults make in a systematic way, shorter gazes, fewer regressions, and shorter saccadic movements during reading than older adults, and they also read faster. The meta-analysis results confirm statistically the most common patterns observed in previous research; therefore, eye movements seem to be a useful tool to measure behavioral changes due to the aging process. Moreover, these results do not allow us to discard either of the two main hypotheses assessed for explaining the observed aging effects, namely neural degenerative problems and the adoption of compensatory strategies.

Selective attention to question-relevant text information precedes high-quality summaries: Evidence from eye movements

“…Prereading questions are an example of a specific reading task that efficiently guides readers’ attention to certain information in text and improves memory for it [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. Lewis and Mensink [ 26 ] conducted two experiments in order to test the benefits of prereading questions for increasing attention to and recall of relevant sentences in texts.…”

“…The resulting memory representation of text reflects the selective attention paid to the relevant text segments: recall is better for task-relevant than irrelevant information. Prereading questions are an example of a specific reading task that efficiently guides readers' attention to certain information in text and improves memory for it (e.g., Lewis & Mensink, 2012;Linderholm, Therriault, & Kwon, 2014;Moreno, León, Martín-Arnal & Botella, 2018;Rapp & Mensink, 2011;Rouet & Coutelet, 2008;Vidal-Abarca et al, 2011). Lewis and Mensink (2012) conducted two experiments in order to test the benefits of prereading questions for increasing attention to and recall of relevant sentences in texts.…”

Are older adults more risky readers? Evidence from meta-analysis.

“…Eye movement research has helped build detailed accounts of visual, cognitive, and oculomotor control processes underlying skilled reading (Rayner, 1998, 2009), enabling the development of sophisticated computational models of eye movement control (Engbert et al, 2005; Reichle et al, 2003, 2006). This research has also provided insight into effects of normative aging on reading behavior (for reviews, see Gordon et al, 2015; Leinenger & Rayner, 2017; Moreno et al, 2019; Paterson et al, 2020). This is argued to show that older adults (65+ years) typically read more slowly than younger adults (18–35 years), by making more and longer fixations and more backward eye movements (regressions), consistent with slower and more disrupted text processing in older age.…”

Oculomotor Abnormalities during Reading in the Offspring of Late-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Further, healthy readers perform strategies to compensate for their perceptual limitations in text processing by making more use of world knowledge and other top-down processes [16]. This strategic change could be reflected in increased neural connectivity across brain regions [17]. Although most functional neuroimaging studies of aging have focused on age effects on regional activity, there is evidence that functional connectivity is also modulated by initial aging processes, including increases in PFC connectivity [18].…”