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Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update - Vol. II pp 281–292Cite as

Eye Movement Behavior Analyses for Studying Cognitive Performance and Conversion to Pathologies

Abstract

The interest of linking eye movement and reading has shown an exponential growth in the last decades. Additionally, the technology for tracking gaze position has advanced considerably and has become widely available for its use. Reading is a feedback process that requires the integration of different cognitive systems, and is an ideal field for exploring the relationships between eye movements and top-down processes. Several of the associated cognitive processes such as working memory and semantic memory are known to be relevant when reading sentences. For example, during reading high-predictable sentences the upcoming word predictability facilitates word processing in healthy readers. In the present chapter, we show the effect of contextual word predictability on the eye-movement behavior in patients with mild cognitive impairment due to dementia and to neuropsychiatric pathologies (i.e., Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia respectively) in comparison with control groups of similar ages and education. The differences in the pattern are clearly presented. Our results show that it is possible to develop a new, objective, noninvasive, and economical technique to evaluate mild cognitive impairments that could help in the early and proper diagnosis of such pathologies.

Keywords

  • Cognition
  • Eye movements; Alzheimer: schizophrenia
  • Early diagnosis

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica from Argentina under grant PICT 2013 0403, the Universidad Nacional del Sur under grant PGI 24/K048, and CIC.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ing. Eléctrica (IIIE) (UNS – CONICET), Bahía Blanca, Argentina

    Gerardo Fernández

  2. Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences Development, Institute of Electric Engineering Research, National University of the South (Universidad Nacional del Sur), Argentina National Scientific and Technological Research (IIIE-CONICET-UNS), Bahía Blanca, Argentina

    Paola Buedo

  3. Clínica Privada Bahiense, Bahía Blanca, Argentina

    David Orozco

  4. Universidad Nacional del Sur – Comision de Investigaciones Científicas, Departamento de Ing. Eléctrica y de Computadoras, Avda Alem 1253, Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, 8000, Argentina

    Osvaldo Agamennoni

Authors
  1. Gerardo Fernández
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  2. Paola Buedo
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  3. David Orozco
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  4. Osvaldo Agamennoni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Osvaldo Agamennoni .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National University of Cuyo, Catholic University of Argentina, Guaymallen Mendoza, Argentina

    Pascual Ángel Gargiulo

  2. Institute of Neurobiology Foundation, National Academy of Medicine, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Humberto Luis Mesones-Arroyo

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Fernández, G., Buedo, P., Orozco, D., Agamennoni, O. (2017). Eye Movement Behavior Analyses for Studying Cognitive Performance and Conversion to Pathologies. In: Gargiulo, P., Mesones-Arroyo, H. (eds) Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update - Vol. II. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53126-7_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53126-7_21

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