Enhancing Ecological Validity of Gaze-Cueing Stimuli is Associated with Increased Gaze Following for Older but not Younger Adults

Abstract

Gaze following is a core social-cognitive capacity that is associated with an age related reduction in magnitude. Prior studies of age effects on gaze following have exclusively used stimuli with low ecological validity which gives rise to an alternative explanation for the age effects. Motivational models of aging suggest that because older adults have fewer cognitive resources relative to younger adults, they are less motivated to engage in tasks that are not meaningful or personally relevant to them. It follows that older adults’ reduced gaze following might not reflect a true decrement in ability to follow gaze, but rather a lower motivation to engage to their full capacity due to the use of highly artificial static stimuli. In the present study, younger (N = 63) and older adults (N = 68) completed a standard gaze-cueing task (static images) and a gaze-cueing task with enhanced ecological validity (videos of shifting gaze). Contrary to past research, we found robust evidence that younger and older adults showed equivalent gaze following overall. In line with motivational model theorising, ecological validity enhanced gaze following for older but not younger adults. These findings highlight the importance of considering stimulus ecological validity in social-cognitive ageing research. They also provide information regarding the specific types of gaze cues that may be most effective in producing the cognitive and perceptual benefits that gaze cues are associated with for older adults.