Violated expectations during locomotion through virtual environments: Age effects on gaze guidance

Gaze behavior during locomotion must balance the sampling of relevant information and the need for a stable gait. To maintain a safe gait in the light of declining resources, older adults might shift this balance toward the uptake of gait-related information. We investigated how violations of expectations affect gaze behavior and information uptake across age groups by asking younger and older adults to locomote through a virtual hallway, where they encountered expected and unexpected objects. We found that older adults look more on the floor, despite the translational locomotion, though not the rotational, being virtual. Dwell times on unexpected objects were increased in both age groups compared to expected objects. Although older adults showed shorter dwell times on expected objects, dwell times on unexpected objects were similar across age groups. Thus the difference between expected and unexpected objects was greater in older adults. Gaze distributions were more influenced by cognitive control capacities than by motor control capacities. Our findings indicate that unexpected information attracts attention during locomotion-particularly in older adults. However, during actual locomotion in the real world, increased information processing might come at the cost of reduced gait safety if processing resources are shifted away from stabilizing gait.