Journal of Eye Movement Research最新文献

Many studies deal with solution strategies in mental-rotation tests. The approaches range from global analysis, attention to object parts, holistic and piecemeal strategy to a combined strategy. Other studies do not speak of strategies, but of holistic or piecemeal processes or even of holistic or piecemeal rotation. The methodological approach used here is to identify mental-rotation strategies via gaze patterns derived from eye-tracking data when solving chronometric mental-rotation tasks with gender-stereotyped objects. The mental-rotation test consists of 3 male-stereotyped objects (locomotive, hammer, wrench) and 3 femalestereotyped objects (pram, hand mirror, brush) rotated at eight different angles. The sample consisted of 16 women and 10 men (age: M=21.58; SD=4.21). The results of a qualitative analysis with two individual objects (wrench and brush) showed four different gaze patterns. These gaze patterns appeared with different frequency in the two objects and correlated differently with performance and response time. The results indicate either an objectoriented or an egocentric mental-rotation strategy behind the gaze patterns. In general, a new methodological approach has been developed to identify mental-rotation strategies bottom-up which can also be used for other stimulus types.

This note adds historical context into solving the problem of improving the speed of the step response of a low-order plant in two different types of control systems, a chemical mixing system and the human saccadic system. Two electrical engineers studied the above problem: one to understand and model how nature and evolution solved it and the other to design a control system to solve it in a man-made commercial system. David A. Robinson discovered that fast and accurate saccades were produced by a pulse-step of neural innervation applied to the extraocular plant. Leonidas M. Mantgiaris invented a method to achieve rapid and accurate chemical mixing by applying a large stimulus for a short period of time and then replacing it with the desired steady-state value (i.e., a "pulse-step" input). Thus, two humans used their brains to: 1) determine how the human brain produced human saccades; and 2) invent a control-system method to produce fast and accurate chemical mixing. That the second person came up with the same method by which his own brain was making saccades may shed light on the question of whether the human brain can fully understand itself.

When manually steering a car, the driver's visual perception of the driving scene and his or her motor actions to control the vehicle are closely linked. Since motor behaviour is no longer required in an automated vehicle, the sampling of the visual scene is affected. Autonomous driving typically results in less gaze being directed towards the road centre and a broader exploration of the driving scene, compared to manual driving. To examine the corollary of this situation, this study estimated the state of automation (manual or automated) on the basis of gaze behaviour. To do so, models based on partial least square regressions were computed by considering the gaze behaviour in multiple ways, using static indicators (percentage of time spent gazing at 13 areas of interests), dynamic indicators (transition matrices between areas) or both together. Analysis of the quality of predictions for the different models showed that the best result was obtained by considering both static and dynamic indicators. However, gaze dynamics played the most important role in distinguishing between manual and automated driving. This study may be relevant to the issue of driver monitoring in autonomous vehicles.

In reading, binocular eye movements are required for optimal visual processing and thus, in case of asthenopia or reading problems, standard orthoptic and optometric routines check individual binocular vision by a variety of tests. The present study therefore examines the predictive value of such standard measures of heterophoria, accommodative and vergence facility, AC/A-ratio, NPC and symptoms for binocular coordination parameters during read-ing. Binocular eye movements were recorded (EyeLink II) for 65 volunteers during a typical reading task and linear regression analyses related all parameters of binocular coordination to all above-mentioned optometric measures: while saccade disconjugacy was weakly pre-dicted by vergence facility (15% explained variance), vergence facility, AC/A and symp-toms scores predicted vergence drift (31%). Heterophoria, vergence facility and NPC ex-plained 31% of fixation disparity and first fixation duration showed minor relations to symp-toms (18%). In sum, we found only weak to moderate relationships, with expected, selective associations: dynamic parameter related to optometric tests addressing vergence dynamics, whereas the static parameter (fixation disparity) related mainly to heterophoria. Most sur-prisingly, symptoms were only loosely related to vergence drift and fixation duration, re-flecting associations to a dynamic aspect of binocular eye movements in reading and poten-tially non-specific, overall but slight reading deficiency. Thus, the efficiency of optometric tests to predict binocular coordination during reading was low - questioning a simple, straightforward extrapolation of such test results to an overlearned, complex task.

In art schools and classes for art history students are trained to pay attention to different aspects of an artwork, such as art movement characteristics and painting techniques. Experts are better at processing style and visual features of an artwork than nonprofessionals. Here we tested the hypothesis that experts in art use different, task-dependent viewing strategies than nonprofessionals when analyzing a piece of art. We compared a group of art history students with a group of students with no art education background, while viewing 36 paintings under three discrimination tasks. Participants were asked to determine the art movement, the date and the medium of the paintings. We analyzed behavioral and eye-movement data of 27 participants. Our observers adjusted their viewing strategies according to the task, resulting in longer fixation durations and shorter saccade amplitudes for the medium detection task. We found higher task accuracy and subjective confidence, less congruence and higher dispersion in fixation locations in experts. Expertise also influenced saccade metrics, biasing it towards larger saccade amplitudes, advocating a more holistic scanning strategy of experts in all three tasks.

Viewing artworks may be subject to the same processes as everyday scene selection in respect of gaze behaviour. However, artists may employ carefully constructed composition in their paintings to lead the eyes of viewers along a predetermined path. This paper investigates whether composition is successful through comparison of expected scanpaths (constructed using the known intention of the artist) and actual scanpaths (as captured using an eye-tracker) based on a loci and sequence similarity index. The findings suggest that composition is successful in leading the eye, although the order of fixations can vary. It could thus be concluded that composition is largely successful in terms of salient elements, but less so for guiding elements. Furthermore, using Cognitive Linguistics theories and applying it to the paintings with reference to the statistical results, the Art Creation Continuum that captures the role of composition on a spectrum is proposed.

The present eye-tracking study investigated how audio explanations influence perception and the cognitive processing of historical paintings. Spatially close and distant pairs of picture elements and their semantic relations were named in an audio text either immediately after each other or with descriptions of other elements in between. It was assumed that the number of backward fixation counts on the first of the two mentioned related picture elements should be higher if they are spatially close rather than spatially distant. There should also be more backward fixation counts if the elements are named temporally close rather than temporally distant. Similar predictions were made for the retention of these picture elements and their relations. A 2x2x2 within-subject design (n=36) with spatial distance (close vs. distant), temporal distance (close vs. distant) and painting (Leutze vs. West) revealed more background fixation counts for spatially close compared to spatially distant elements but just for the Leutze painting. Accordingly, the relations between the spatially close pairs were retained better than between the spatially distant pairs in the Leutze painting but vice versa for the West painting. The results are discussed with regard to the spatial contiguity principle of multimedia learning and research on text coherence.

Eye tracking research in art viewership is often conducted in a laboratory setting where reproductions must be used in place of original art works and the viewing environment is less natural than in a museum. Recent technological developments have made museum studies possible but head-mounted eye tracking gear and interruptions by researchers still influence the experience of the viewer. In order to find a more ecologically valid way of recording eye movements while viewing artworks, we employed a prototype of a calibrationfree remote eye tracker hidden below selected paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Museum visitors were unaware of the study and informed post hoc that we had registered their viewing behavior and asked to give consent for the use of their data. This article presents the study design as well as results from over 800 participants. While the data quality from the eye tracker prototype was not sufficient to conduct the intended analysis on within-painting gaze movements, this study might serve as a step towards an unobtrusive examination of the art viewing experience. It was possible to analyze time spent viewing paintings and those results show that certain paintings consistently drew significantly more prolonged attention from viewers.

At the threshold of the digital era, Zuzana Licko was of the opinion that familiar letterforms owe legibility to centuries-long exposure and that all new, prototypically unmatching forms would be equally legible if used as frequently. This paper examined the legibility in the context of familiarity - is it affected by the time of exposure to a particular typeface or a typeface's universal structure. We ran repeated measures tests with exposure period in-between. The experiment was conducted using for this purpose designed typefaces as stimuli, and the eye-tracking on-screen reading technology. The results confirmed that one's familiarity with a typeface influences one's reading speed. The universal letter structure, recognised by Frutiger as the prototype skeleton, is the constant that a priori provides legibility. On the other hand, the period of exposure to uncommon letterforms also has a positive impact on legibility. Therefore, considering that the period of familiarity with the humanist letterforms has been continuous since their establishment, the maxim from the dawn of the digital era can be regarded as valid.

While many studies have characterized the eye movements during visual fixation, includ-ing microsaccades, in most cases only horizontal and vertical components have been rec-orded and analyzed. Thus, little is known about the torsional component of microsaccades. We took advantage of a newly developed software and hardware to record eye movements around the three axes of rotation during fixation and torsional optokinetic stimulus. We found that the average amplitude of the torsional component of microsaccades during fixation was 0.34 ± 0.07 degrees with velocities following a main sequence with a slope comparable to the horizontal and vertical components. We also found the size of the tor-sional displacement during microsaccades was correlated with the horizontal but not the vertical component. In the presence of an optokinetic stimulus a nystagmus was induced producing a more frequent and larger torsional quick phases compared to microsaccades produced during fixation with a stationary stimulus. The torsional component and the vertical vergence component of quick phases grew larger with higher velocities. Addition-ally, our results validate and show the feasibility of recording torsional eye movements using video eye tracking in a desktop mounted setup.