Healthy aging is associated with a general compromise in cognitive, sensory, and motor functions, often reflected in slower and more variable sensorimotor processes. Here, we demonstrate that aging is not only marked by sensorimotor decline but is also accompanied by adaptive sensory sampling strategies during complex motor tasks. Specifically, we examined how healthy aging influences gaze allocation when intercepting a moving object within a narrow spatiotemporal margin, and hypothesized that older adults would rely more on predictive gaze allocation to the interception area. Younger (20-34 yr) and older adults (>55 yr) were asked to hit a moving target at specific hit zones on a monitor that could be inferred either with high (disk) or low (arc) spatial certainty. In two separate experiments, the target moved along unpredictable or predictable paths toward those hit zones. Older adults initiated their interceptive movement earlier than younger adults, but both achieved high interception performance. Remarkably, older adults executed predictive saccades toward the hit zones earlier than younger adults and fixated those hit zones for longer. This was particularly the case when the hit zone was of high spatial certainty. We did not find evidence for a relationship between gaze allocation patterns and interception performance. We suggest that aging can lead to a shift in gaze allocation patterns when performing spatiotemporal constrained tasks, possibly to optimize the acquisition of task-relevant visual information in the presence of age-related sensorimotor limitations.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Healthy aging comes with poorer sensory processing and pronounced sensorimotor delays that can impair behavior. Here, we demonstrate that older adults rely on predictive gaze allocation during interception, which enables them to maintain high motor performance. Specifically, older adults made earlier predictive gaze shifts to future interception locations compared with younger adults, while maintaining high interception performance. We suggest that gaze allocation is adaptable in aging to maintain high performance despite age-related sensorimotor limitations.
Keywords: aging; eye movements; eye-hand coordination; smooth pursuit; visuomotor control.