Visual scanning patterns of adolescents with mental retardation during tracing and copying tasks

Visual scanning patterns of individuals with mental retardation and MA- and CA-matched individuals without mental retardation were recorded during visuo-motor tasks. In some conditions of both the tracing and copying tasks, the mean distances between eye fixation points and penpoints were shorter for the mentally retarded group than for those in both nonretarded groups. Nevertheless, the former showed poorer performance on the tasks than did the latter two groups, suggesting that subjects with mental retardation paid more attention to penpoints than to the succeeding or passed points of a model line. Results are consistent with previous findings that people with compared to those without mental retardation have a poorer ability to process more than two stimuli at the same time.