Linear age-correlated development of inhibitory saccadic trajectory deviations

The present study examined development-related differences in saccade curvature during a goal-directed saccade task in the presence of distracting visual information. Participants were individuals who ranged in age from 6 to 30 years. Consistent with previous findings, all participants showed curvature toward the distractor stimulus at shorter saccadic reaction times (SRTs). Chronological age, however, was positively related to participants' ability to inhibit distracting information as revealed by curvature away from the distractor stimulus at longer SRTs. Interestingly, no significant differences in saccadic reaction times were observed. Results are discussed in the context of similar findings comparing older and younger adults and the putative frontal neural mechanisms that contribute to the observed developmental effect. Our present results suggest that saccadic curvature can be used a tool to measure fontal-oculomotor control interaction across the life span and can be further used to examine inhibitory functioning in special pediatric populations (e.g., having brain trauma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, frontal epilepsy).