Tracking the eyes to track decline: Global eye movement similarity as a novel neuropsychological marker of mild cognitive impairment
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Introduction: Across two studies, we investigated whether global eye movement similarity reflects visuospatial memory impairment in older adults, aiming to identify a novel neuropsychological marker of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods: In Study 1, 35 participants completed a global eye movement similarity memory (GEMS-M) task, viewing indoor scene images with three objects and identifying changes during the recognition phase. In Study 2, 60 participants (30 healthy controls, 30 with MCI) completed a passive version of the task without explicit memory judgment. Results: Study 1 showed that the similarity of global eye movement patterns between encoding and recognition phases predicted memory performance, particularly when an object was added. Study 2 demonstrated that global eye movement similarity, combined with demographics, discriminated MCI patients from healthy controls with an AUC of 0.93. Discussion: Our findings suggest that global eye movement similarity may serve as a promising tool for the early detection of MCI.
Details
| Original language | English |
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| Journal | GeroScience |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 25 Feb 2026 |
| Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
| PubMed | 41739373 |
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Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Fixation similarity, Generalized linear mixed effects model, Global eye movement similarity, Mild cognitive impairment, Scanpath similarity, Visuospatial working memory