Quantifying the Impact of Myopia on Visual Perception in Children Through Eye Tracking

Myopia is a prevalent ocular disorder that often develops in early childhood and affects children's vision as well as potential cognitive ability throughout crucial developmental stages. While earlier studies have shown how myopia affects cognitive processes such as intermittent memory in adults, there are currently few straightforward scientific explanations for how myopia affects visual cognitive performance. In order to examine the relevant visual behavior through the patterns of children's eye movements, this study used eye tracking technology to collect eye movement data from children aged 8 to 10 years during a natural reading task and an image recognition task. The cognitive abilities of the control group and children with varied degrees of myopia were quantitatively measured using the MoCA. The results revealed no significant differences in the ability to interpret textual materials throughout the natural reading task. However, in the visual image recognition task, there were significant differences between the control group and the moderate myopia group in the first saccade start time to target pictures (p = 0.047 by independent sample Kruskal-Wallis test), indicating that children with moderate myopia might have slower recognition than their peers with normal vision. These results offered additional evidence that myopia could have a detrimental effect on children's vision-related cognitive function.