Visual exploration disturbance has been examined in the elderly, mainly from the perspective of associations with cognitive function. However, it remains unknown whether this is a consequence of cognitive decline, age-related changes independent of cognitive decline, or both. In this study, 15 healthy elderly individuals were evaluated using two figure-matching tasks representing visual information processing (clock-matching and inverted clock-matching tasks). Cognitive functions were evaluated for each subject using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Infrared eye-movement assessments were used to analyze eye movements during task performance. Behavioral analyses showed that age was associated with longer reaction time, while MMSE score was associated with higher accuracy on the inverted clock-matching task. Analyses of eye-movement parameters showed that MMSE score was negatively associated with a parameter indicating difficulty in the efficiency of visual exploration planning, while age was tended to be positively associated with the sum of saccade times in each trial, both predominantly on the inverted clock-matching task. Our approaches highlighted that age and cognitive decline are separately associated with eye-movement characteristics: cognitive decline is associated with difficulty in visual exploration planning, particularly in situations that require substantial visual working memory resources, whereas aging may be associated with oculomotor dysfunction.

已经在老年人中检查了视觉探索障碍，主要是从与认知功能的关联角度。然而，目前尚不清楚这是认知能力下降的结果，还是与认知能力下降无关的年龄相关变化，或两者兼而有之。在这项研究中，使用两个代表视觉信息处理的图形匹配任务（时钟匹配和倒置时钟匹配任务）对 15 名健康老年人进行了评估。使用简易精神状态检查 (MMSE) 评估每个受试者的认知功能。红外眼动评估用于分析任务执行期间的眼动。行为分析表明，年龄与更长的反应时间相关，而 MMSE 分数与倒置时钟匹配任务的更高准确性相关。眼动参数的分析表明，MMSE 分数与指示视觉探索计划效率困难的参数呈负相关，而年龄往往与每次试验中的扫视时间总和呈正相关，两者都主要在倒置时钟上-匹配任务。我们的方法强调年龄和认知能力下降分别与眼球运动特征相关：认知能力下降与视觉探索计划的困难有关，特别是在需要大量视觉工作记忆资源的情况下，而衰老可能与动眼神经功能障碍有关。而年龄往往与每次试验中的扫视时间总和呈正相关，两者主要是在倒置时钟匹配任务中。我们的方法强调年龄和认知能力下降分别与眼球运动特征相关：认知能力下降与视觉探索计划的困难有关，特别是在需要大量视觉工作记忆资源的情况下，而衰老可能与动眼神经功能障碍有关。而年龄往往与每次试验中的扫视时间总和呈正相关，两者主要是在倒置时钟匹配任务中。我们的方法强调年龄和认知能力下降分别与眼球运动特征相关：认知能力下降与视觉探索计划的困难有关，特别是在需要大量视觉工作记忆资源的情况下，而衰老可能与动眼神经功能障碍有关。