Semantic processing in subjective cognitive decline: An eye-tracking study.

Objectives: Alzheimer's disease progresses through several stages, starting with a preclinical phase characterized by subjective cognitive decline (SCD), where individuals express concerns about their memory despite normal cognitive test results. Recent research has indicated subtle semantic difficulties in SCD, prompting the need for a deeper investigation into cognitive processing during this phase. This study aimed to investigate the cognitive processing of famous and unfamiliar faces in individuals with SCD compared to healthy controls, focusing on semantic memory deficits assessment.

Method: Twenty-seven participants with SCD and 26 control participants performed a judgment task involving famous and unfamiliar faces while their eye movements were recorded. Mean fixation times, number of revisitations, and number of fixations were analyzed between the two groups.

Results: The SCD group exhibited no significant differences in mean fixation times and in the number of revisited regions between famous and unfamiliar faces, in contrast to the control group, which showed distinct patterns in processing these categories of stimuli.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that individuals with SCD process famous faces similarly to unfamiliar faces, indicating a potential weakening of semantic processing in SCD. This may have implications for early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).