Age-related changes in the visual, oculomotor, and cognitive mechanisms underlying reading

阅读是一项对个人积极而成功地参与日常生活至关重要的技能。阅读也是一项复杂的认知和视觉任务，这需要对眼动进行准确的编程和执行，快速识别复杂的视觉模式，并迅速整合单个字母和单词，以建立对文本的连贯理解。确定健康、正常的老年期间阅读的变化，包括对典型的与年龄相关的认知和视力变化的反应，对于确保个人在一生中成功阅读至关重要。以前的研究表明，老年人(65岁以上)的阅读速度慢于年轻人(18-35岁)，而且老年读者的眼球运动不同于其他阅读速度较慢的群体(例如，技能较差的年轻成年人读者，阅读困难的读者)。这表明，阅读过程中存在着与年龄相关的明显变化。导致这种变化的因素有很多，包括视力下降和辨认单词的速度减慢。到目前为止，研究阅读过程中与年龄相关的眼动行为变化的研究重点一直是“年轻人”，即65-79岁的人。以前的研究中纳入的“老年”读者(80岁以上)相对较少，到目前为止还没有研究试图比较年轻和老年读者。尽管有证据表明，认知、视觉、眼球运动和语言能力在整个老年过程中都会继续发生变化，但这一点仍然存在。确定阅读的认知机制如何在标准的老年期间发生变化，将为我们更全面地理解与年龄相关的阅读变化提供更全面的理解。

Reading is a skill that is fundamentally important for individuals to actively and successfully participate in everyday life. Reading is also a complex cognitive and visual task, which necessitates the accurate programming and execution of eyemovements, rapid identification of intricate visual patterns, and swift integration of individual letters and words to build a cohesive understanding of a text. Determining how reading changes during healthy, normative older age, including in response to typical age-related changes in cognition and vision, is fundamental to efforts toensure that individuals read successfully across the lifespan.Previous research has shown that reading is slower in older adults (aged 65+ years) than young adults (aged 18-35 years) and that the eye movements of older readers differ from those of other groups of slower readers (e.g. less skilled young adult readers, readers with dyslexia). This indicates that there are distinctive age-related changes in the processes underlying reading. Multiple contributing factors to such changes have been established, including visual declines and slowdowns in the identification of words.To date the focus of research examining age-related changes in eye movement behaviour during reading has been on the "young-old", i.e. those aged 65-79 years. Relatively few "older-old" readers (aged 80+ years) have been included in previous studies, and to date no studies have sought to compare young-old and older-old readers. This is despite evidence that cognitive, visual, oculomotor, and language abilities continue to change throughout older age. Determining how the cognitive mechanisms underlying reading change during normative older-old age will provide a much more comprehensive understanding of age-related changes in reading.