Age-related differences in perspective-taking during a referential communication task

The ability to take a communicative partner’s perspective is vital for successful social interaction. In the CogSoCoAGE study, younger (20-40 years old) and older adults (60-80+ years old) completed the Keysar task. Participants’ eye movements were tracked, time-locked to the auditory instructions from a communicative partner. Fixations to the available objects, as well as object selection responses, were recorded as an indicator of perspective use. This study provided a measure of the ability to integrate the communicative partner’s perspective with her verbal instructions. The study also investigated whether egocentric errors (revealed through eye movements) differed across the age groups.