Aging and the control of binocular fixations during reading

Older adults (65 + years) often have greater difficulty in reading than young adults (18-30 years). However, the extent to which this difficulty is attributable to impaired eye-movement control is uncertain. To address this issue, the alignment and location of the two eyes' fixations during reading were monitored for young and older adults. Older adults showed typical patterns of reading difficulty but the results revealed no age differences in the alignment or location of the two eyes' fixations. Thus, the difficulty older adults experience in reading is not related to oculomotor control, which appears to be preserved into older age.