Gender differences and reproducibility in exploratory eye movements of normal subjects

Abstract

Exploratory eye movements were recorded using an eye-mark recorder in 48 normal subjects (24 male and 24 female). Gender differences were examined regarding four eye movement parameters such as the mean gazing time, the total number of gazing points, and the mean eye scanning length and the total eye scanning length. The mean gazing time of women was significantly longer than that of men, and the total number of gazing points of women was significantly less than that of men. The mean eye-scanning length of men and women did not differ. The total eye scanning length of men was significantly longer than that of women. Reproducibility between sessions of the four eye movement parameters above was expressed as Pearson correlation coefficients (r) in 24 healthy adults before and after a month interval, yielding respective coefficients of 0.65, 0.42, 0.56 and 0.61. These results suggested that differences in exploratory eye movements between men and women may reflect differences in the characteristics of visual information processing and also confirmed the reproducibility of exploratory eye movement parameters.