Visual encoding and age-related deficits in object location memory: Evidence from eye movements

With age, object-location memory performance has been shown to reduce, and older adults recall fewer object locations than younger adults. However, to date, no research has investigated the role of eye movements during encoding of scenes in relation to memory for object-location information. Furthermore, there has been no investigation of whether differences in encoding behaviour with age relate to subsequent memory recall.
Using eye-tracking methodology, we aim to conduct three experiments to explore how eye movements during scene inspection change in relation to age, and in relation to recall performance. Specifically, we will systematically explore the influence of encoding instruction, object-distractor similarity and the influence of attentional cueing at encoding on patterns of eye movements and object-location memory performance in younger and older adults.
We will also assess the extent to which object-location memory is poorer than either object memory or location memory, and whether these effects are disproportionately larger in older compared to younger adults. From our findings, we aim to provide a clear theoretical account of the relationship between encoding processes associated with scene perception, the cognitive processes underpinning object-location memory, and the extent to which age-related differences in encoding processes are associated with differential age-related decline.