By 2050, the global population of people aged 65 years or older will triple. While this is accompanied with an increasing burden of age‐associated diseases, it also emphasizes the need to understand the effects of healthy aging on cognitive processes. One such effect is a general slowing of processing speed, which is well documented in many domains. The execution of anti‐saccades depends on a well‐established brain‐wide network ranging from various cortical areas and basal ganglia through the superior colliculus down to the brainstem saccade generators. To clarify the consequences of healthy aging as well as gender on the execution of reflexive and voluntary saccades, we measured a large sample of healthy, non‐demented individuals (n = 731, aged 51–84 years) in the anti‐saccade task. Age affected various aspects of saccade performance: The number of valid trials decreased with age. Error rate, saccadic reaction times (SRTs), and variability in saccade accuracy increased with age, whereas anti‐saccade costs, accuracy, and peak velocity of anti‐saccades and direction errors were not affected by age. Gender affected SRTs independent of age and saccade type with male participants having overall shorter SRTs. Our rigid and solid statistical testing using linear mixed‐effect models provide evidence for a uniform slowing of processing speed independent of the actually performed eye movement. Our data do not support the assumption of a specific deterioration of frontal lobe functions with aging.

中文翻译：

---

年龄和性别对防扫视性能的影响：大量健康老龄人群的结果

到2050年，全球65岁以上的人口将增长两倍。尽管这伴随着与年龄有关的疾病负担的增加，但它也强调需要了解健康的衰老对认知过程的影响。这样的影响之一就是处理速度的普遍降低，这在许多领域都有据可查。抗扫视的执行取决于一个完善的全脑网络，范围从各个皮层区域和基底神经节到上丘，再到脑干扫视发生器。为了阐明健康的衰老以及性别对执行反射性和自愿性扫视的影响，我们测量了大量健康，无痴呆的个体（n = 731，年龄51-84岁）。年龄影响扫视成绩的各个方面：有效试验的数量随年龄而减少。错误率，眼跳反应时间（SRT）和扫视精度的可变性会随着年龄的增长而增加，而反扫视的成本，准确性以及反扫视的峰值速度和方向误差不受年龄的影响。性别影响的SRT不受年龄和扫视类型的影响，男性参与者的SRT总体较短。我们使用线性混合效应模型进行的严格和可靠的统计测试为独立于实际执行的眼睛移动而均匀降低处理速度提供了证据。我们的数据不支持额叶功能随年龄而特定退化的假设。