Readman Megan Rose, Polden Megan, Gibbs Melissa Chloe, Wareing Lettie, Crawford Trevor J
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK.
Brain Sci. 2021 Nov 12;11(11):1503. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11111503.
Extensive research has demonstrated that eye-tracking tasks can effectively indicate cognitive impairment. For example, lab-based eye-tracking tasks, such as the antisaccade task, have robustly distinguished between people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy older adults. Due to the neurodegeneration associated with AD, people with AD often display extended saccade latencies and increased error rates on eye-tracking tasks. Although the effectiveness of using eye tracking to identify cognitive impairment appears promising, research considering the utility of eye tracking during naturalistic tasks, such as reading, in identifying cognitive impairment is limited. The current review identified 39 articles assessing eye-tracking distinctions between people with AD, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and healthy controls when completing naturalistic task (reading, real-life simulations, static image search) or a goal-directed task involving naturalistic stimuli. The results revealed that naturalistic tasks show promising biomarkers and distinctions between healthy older adults and AD participants, and therefore show potential to be used for diagnostic and monitoring purposes. However, only twelve articles included MCI participants and assessed the sensitivity of measures to detect cognitive impairment in preclinical stages. In addition, the review revealed inconsistencies within the literature, particularly when assessing reading tasks. We urge researchers to expand on the current literature in this area and strive to assess the robustness and sensitivity of eye-tracking measures in both AD and MCI populations on naturalistic tasks.
大量研究表明，眼动追踪任务能够有效指示认知障碍。例如，基于实验室的眼动追踪任务，如反扫视任务，已有力地区分了阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者和健康老年人。由于与AD相关的神经退行性变，AD患者在眼动追踪任务中往往表现出更长的扫视潜伏期和更高的错误率。尽管利用眼动追踪识别认知障碍的有效性看起来很有前景，但考虑眼动追踪在自然任务（如阅读）中识别认知障碍的效用的研究却很有限。当前的综述确定了39篇文章，这些文章评估了AD患者、轻度认知障碍（MCI）患者和健康对照在完成自然任务（阅读、现实生活模拟、静态图像搜索）或涉及自然刺激的目标导向任务时的眼动追踪差异。结果显示，自然任务显示出有前景的生物标志物以及健康老年人与AD参与者之间的差异，因此具有用于诊断和监测目的的潜力。然而，只有12篇文章纳入了MCI参与者，并评估了这些测量方法在临床前阶段检测认知障碍的敏感性。此外，综述还揭示了文献中的不一致之处，尤其是在评估阅读任务时。我们敦促研究人员拓展该领域的现有文献，并努力评估眼动追踪测量方法在AD和MCI人群的自然任务中的稳健性和敏感性。
