Journal of Eye Movement Research最新文献

We investigated the functions and mechanisms of non-goal-driven eye movements, which are defined as eye movements induced when looking at visual stimuli on a display without engaging in a specific task or looking at a display without any visual stimuli or tasks. In our experiment, participants were asked to perform a visual search task on a display, which was followed by a rest period in which stimuli remained on the display or all stimuli were erased. During the rest period, the participants were asked to only look at the displays without engaging in any visual or cognitive tasks. We mainly analyzed the gaze-shift patterns in both task and rest periods, in which eye movements were classified in accordance with the angles of saccade directions in two consecutive saccades. The results indicate a significant difference between goal-driven eye movements, which were observed in the task period, and nongoal- driven eye movements, which were observed in the rest period. Scanning gaze-shift patterns dominated the task period, and backward and corrective-saccade-like gaze-shift patterns dominated the rest period. The gaze-shift pattern was affected by the task-difficulty during the task period. From these findings, we propose a model describing the oculomotor system in terms of goal-driven and non-goal-driven eye movements. In this model, the engagement levels of top-down and bottom-up control change along with task difficulty and are affected by the gaze-shift patterns during a visual search task. Decoupling of top-down control from the oculomotor system during a rest period induces backward saccades, resulting in fixation around the central part of a display. Therefore, we suggest that non-goaldriven eye movements play a crucial role in maintaining the readiness of the oculomotor system for the next search task.

Studying the role of expertise in poetry reading, we hypothesized that poets' expert knowledge comprises genre-appropriate reading- and comprehension strategies that are re-flected in distinct patterns of reading behavior. We recorded eye movements while two groups of native speakers (n=10 each) read selected Russian poetry: an expert group of professional poets who read poetry daily, and a control group of novices who read poetry less than once a month. We conducted mixed-effects re-gression analyses to test for effects of group on first-fixation durations, first-pass gaze du-rations, and total reading times per word while controlling for lexical- and text variables. First-fixation durations exclusively reflected lexical features, and total reading times re-flected both lexical- and text variables; only first-pass gaze durations were additionally mod-ulated by readers' level of expertise. Whereas gaze durations of novice readers became faster as they progressed through the poems, and differed between line-final words and non-final ones, poets retained a steady pace of first-pass reading throughout the poems and within verse lines. Additionally, poets' gaze durations were less sensitive to word length. We conclude that readers' level of expertise modulates the way they read poetry. Our find-ings support theories of literary comprehension that assume distinct processing modes which emerge from prior experience with literary texts.

Mental fatigue is known to occur as a result of activities related to e.g. transportation, health-care, military operations and numerous other cognitive demanding tasks. Gaze tracking has wide-ranging applications, with the technology becoming more compact and processing power reducing. Though numerous techniques have been applied to measure mental fatigue using gaze tracking, smooth-pursuit movement, a natural eye movement generated when following a moving object with gaze, has not been explored with relation to mental fatigue. In this paper, we report the results from a smooth-pursuit movement based eye-typing experiment with varying task difficulty to generate cognitive load, performed in the morning and afternoon by 36 participants. We have investigated the effects of time-on-task and time of day on mental fatigue using self-reported questionnaires and smooth-pursuit performance, extracted from the gaze data. The self-reported mental fatigue increased due to time-on-task, but the time of day did not have an effect. The results illustrate that smooth-pursuit movement performance declined with time-on-task, with increased error in the gaze position and an inability to match the speed of the moving object. The findings exhibit the feasibility of mental fatigue detection using smoothpursuit movements during an eye-interactive task of eye-typing.

Research on visual expertise has progressed significantly due to the availability of eye tracking tools. However, attempts to bring together research on expertise and eye tracking methodology provoke several challenges, because visual information processes should be studied in authentic and domain-specific environments. Among the barriers to designing appropriate research are the proper definition of levels of expertise, the tension between internal (experimental control) and external (authentic environments) validity, and the appropriate methodology to study eye movements in a three-dimensional environment. This exploratory study aims to address these challenges and to provide an adequate research setting by investigating visual expertise in sculpting. Eye movements and gaze patterns of 20 participants were investigated while looking at two sculptures in a museum. The participants were assigned to four different groups based on their level of expertise (laypersons, novices, semi-experts, experts). Using mobile eye tracking, the following parameters were measured: number of fixations, duration of fixation, dwell time in relevant areas, and revisits in relevant areas. Moreover, scan paths were analysed using the eyenalysis approach. Conclusions are drawn on both the nature of visual expertise in sculpting and the potential (and limitations) of empirical designs that aim to investigate expertise in authentic environments.

About ECEM ECEM was initiated by Rudolf Groner (Bern), Dieter Heller (Bayreuth at the time) and Henk Breimer (Tilburg) in the 198 to provide a forum for an interdisciplinary group of scientists interested in eye movements. Since the inaugural meeting in Bern, the conference has been held every two years in different venues across Europe until 2021, when it was planned to take place in Leicester but was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. It was decided to hold the meeting in Leicester in August 2022 instead, and as an in person meeting rather than an online or hybrid event. Incidentally, the present meeting is the third time the conference has come to the English East Midlands, now in Leicester following previous meetings in the neighbouring cities of Derby and Nottingham. The sites of previous ECEMs and webpages can be found here..

The assessment of the visual field in young children continues to be a challenge. Children often do not sit still, fail to fixate stimuli for longer durations, and have limited verbal capacity to report visibility. Therefore, we introduced a head-mounted VR display with gazecontingent flicker pupil perimetry (VRgcFPP). We presented large flickering patches at different eccentricities and angles in the periphery to evoke pupillary oscillations, and three fixation stimulus conditions to determine best practices for optimal fixation and pupil response quality. A total of twenty children (3-11y) passively fixated a dot, counted the repeated appearance of an animated character (counting task), and watched an animated movie in separate trials of 80s each (20 patch locations, 4s per location). The results showed that gaze precision and accuracy did not differ significantly across the fixation conditions but pupil amplitudes were strongest for the dot and count task. The VR set-up appears to be an ideal apparatus for children to allow free range of movement, an engaging visual task, and reliable eye measurements. We recommend the use of the fixation counting task for pupil perimetry because children enjoyed it the most and it achieved strongest pupil responses.