The Role of Eye Movement Consistency in Aging-Related Decline in Face Recognition

Face recognition involves a prolonged developmental process where individuals gradually develop a more consistent yet idiosyncratic visual routine with increasing age. In contrast to this early developmental trend, among 301 middle and older participants, we observed that age was associated with lower eye movement consistency, suggesting an inverted-U shape across the lifespan, and consistency could partially account for the association between age and declined face recognition performance. Also, a less eyes-focused eye movement pattern predicted poorer recognition performance together with lower consistency, suggesting that the idiosyncratic eye movement patterns acquired during early adulthood continue to contribute significantly. Additionally, lower eye movement consistency was associated with poorer selective attention and inhibitory control, indicating that the decline in consistency may reflect difficulties in executing learned visual routines. These findings have important implications for understanding cognitive aging and potential interventions to delay its process through training in face recognition and related visual strategies.