Eye movement as a predictor of cognitive ability

Abstract

With aging population, neurodegenerative disorder is becoming a public health issue. Given the adverse effects of such disorder, tools for early screening become very critical. Early screening may help to detect such disorder at a nascent stage that in turn can be clinically addressed thereby delaying its progression. With technological progress, brain scanning can help to identify such disorders. However, access to such tools are restricted due to high cost and necessity of technical skills to operate that are limited to specialized healthcare centers. Tracking of one's eye movement in response to a visual task can be a cost-effective alternative in developing such a screening platform. Motivated by this, in this research study, we have designed computer-based gaze-sensitive system (MindEye) that exposed participants to various visual tasks. Our system captured one's eye movement data to quantify gaze in terms of reaction time (i.e., the degree of promptness) while shifting one's gaze to the desired target point and number of trials with fixation in correct sequence (i.e., the ability to remember and recall) in response to visual targets presented systematically at different regions of a computer monitor. We have carried out two experimental studies. First study involving 10 healthy young individuals categorized into two groups based on their age indicated that one's gaze related indices measured by MindEye is sensitive to the variation in age. The second study involving 10 elderly individuals were again categorized into two groups based on their evaluation by standard paper-and-pencil tests. The results indicate that the variation of the gaze-related indices measured by MindEye become more prominent in the elderly group than that of the younger groups in Study 1. Additionally, the preliminary results of Study 2 are promising in terms of the feasibility of one's gaze-related indices measured by MindEye as potential biomarkers of one's cognitive decline. We hope that the cost-effective and user-friendly MindEye screening platform holds promise for use as a complementary tool in the hands of the clinicians. Thus, the usage of MindEye can be a step towards bringing about a paradigm shift even in rural healthcare.