# A Comparative Analysis of Eye Movement Accuracy for Locating Items Held in Visual Short‐Term Memory Among Young Healthy Adults, Older Adults With Normal Cognition, and Older Adults Indicative of Mild Cognitive Impairment

## TL;DR

This study compares eye movement accuracy in visual memory tasks among young adults, older adults, and those with mild cognitive impairment, finding that eye movement errors may indicate early cognitive decline.

## Contribution

The study identifies saccadic eye movement accuracy as a potential behavioral marker for mild cognitive impairment.

## Key findings

- MCI-indicative participants had greater saccadic error than older and young adults at low memory load.
- Saccadic accuracy declined with increasing memory load for all groups.
- MCI-indicative participants showed worse memory performance than normally aging adults at lower memory load.

## Abstract

We compared the accuracy of eye movements in locating an item stored in visual short‐term memory between young healthy adults, normally aging older adults, and older adults with mild cognitive impairment as indicated by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment or Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination‐III test.

Thirty‐three young healthy adults, 38 normally aging older adults, and 17 older adults indicative of MCI completed two experiments requiring object‐location binding. In Experiment 1, participants viewed 2–4 memory items displayed sequentially at random screen locations. Following a 900 ms interval, eye movements were recorded while participants moved their eyes to the location of the memory item corresponding to a displayed cue. In Experiment 2 (control), participants indicated whether or not the test item was shown at its original location using a yes/no response.

MCI‐indicative participants exhibited greater saccadic error (spatial deviation of saccadic endpoint from the remembered target location) than normally aging older (p = 0.002) and young (p < 0.001) participants at low memory load only. At higher memory load, the saccadic error distance was greater for all groups (p < 0.001). Moreover, in Experiment 2, MCI‐indicative participants exhibited significantly poorer memory performance than normally aging older adults, but only at lower memory load (p = 0.02).

Saccadic accuracy declined with memory load for all groups. The MCI‐indicative group showed lower saccadic accuracy versus normally aging older and young adults at low memory load. The findings offer important insights into our understanding of saccadic eye movement as a potential behavioral marker for MCI.