Age-related differences in visual perspective-taking

Emerging research has highlighted that despite high performance on explicit tasks, healthy adults demonstrate difficulties on implicit tasks when another person’s point of view conflicts with their own. This study examined how these perspective-taking abilities change across the life-span and how executive functions and social abilities predict performance. Younger (20-40 years-old) and older (60-80 years-old) adults completed a level-1 visual perspective-taking task (with eye-tracking), a Stroop task and a task-switching task. The Autism Spectrum Quotient and Empathy Quotient provided measures of social ability. Older adults were slower overall in the visual perspective-taking task. In addition, older adults showed specific impairments when there was a conflict between their own and the avatar’s perspective. This pattern was also reflected in gaze behaviour and pupillometry analysis. Statistical models examined how visual perspective-taking ability is related to individual differences in executive functions and social abilities in younger and older adults.