Eye movement pattern and accuracy during perceptual-motor performance in young and old adults.

Differences between young and old adults in matching a motor response to arrival of a moving stimulus may be partially attributable to age group differences in eye movements. In Experiment 1 the eye movement patterns used by young and old adults during performance of a coincidence-anticipation task were recorded. Age group differences in preferred pattern were noted but did not appear to be linked to task performance level. In Experiment 2, eye tracking error was recorded for young adults and many of the old adults tested in Experiment 1. Age group differences were attributable to task performance rather than eye tracking error. Further, the preferred eye movement pattern did not appear to be stable over time among the subjects retested. The eye-movement reaction time of the old adults was significantly longer than that of the young adults, but this did not appear to hamper the ability of the old adults to distinguish the stimulus speeds. Little evidence was found for linking visual search to task performance error.