Predicting eye-movement characteristics across multiple tasks from working memory and executive control

Abstract

Individual differences in working memory (WM) and executive control are stable, related to cognitive task performance, and clinically predictive. Between-participant differences in eye movements are also highly reliable (Carter & Luke, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,2018; Henderson & Luke, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40(4), 1390–1400, 2014). However, little is known about how higher order individual differences in cognition are related to these eye-movement characteristics. In the present study, healthy college-age participants performed several individual difference tasks to measure WM span and executive control. Participants also performed three eye-movement tasks: reading, visual search, and scene viewing. Across all tasks, higher WM scores were related to reduced skewness in fixation duration distributions. In reading, higher WM scores predicted longer saccades. In scene viewing, higher WM scores predicted longer fixations. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.