Journal of Eye Movement Research

11 pages, 232 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Do You Look Where I Look? Attention Shifts and Response Preparation Following Dynamic Social Cues

by Frouke Hermens and Robin Walker

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2012, 5(5), 1-11; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.5.5.5 - 1 Nov 2012

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 96

Studies investigating the effects of observing a gaze shift in another person often apply static images of a person with an averted gaze, while measuring response times to a peripheral target. Static images, however, are unlike how we normally perceive gaze shifts of others. Moreover, response times might only reveal the effects of a cue on covert attention and might fail to uncover cueing effects on overt attention or response preparation. We therefore extended the standard paradigm and measured cueing effects formore realistic, dynamic cues (video clips),while comparing response times, saccade direction errors and saccade trajectories. Three cues were compared: A social cue, consisting of a eye-gaze shift, and two socially less relevant cues, consisting of a head tilting movement and a person walking past. Similar results were found for the two centrally presented cues (eye-gaze shift and head tilting) on all three response measures, suggesting that cueing is unaffected by the social status of the cue. Interestingly, the cue showing a person walking past showed a dissociation in the direction of the effects on response times on the one hand, and saccade direction errors and latencies on the other hand, suggesting the involvement of two types of (endogenous and exogenous) attention or a distinction between attention and sacadic response preparation. Our results suggest that by using dynamic cues and multiple response measures, properties of cueing can be revealed that would not be found otherwise. Full article

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8 pages, 402 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Heterophoria: Vergence Stability and Visual Acuity After Asymmetric Saccades

by Bernhard M. Blum, Daniel Kirchhoff, Alexander Bickmann, Oliver Ehrt, Andreas Straube and Thomas Eggert

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2012, 5(5), 1-8; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.5.5.4 - 30 Oct 2012

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 104

Abstract

Many patients with heterophoria report on symptoms related to impaired vision. To investigate whether these symptoms are provoked by saccades this study examines whether in heterophoria effects on intrasaccadic and postsaccadic vergence movements are linked to effects on visual performance. Visual acuity was measured in 35 healthy subjects during fixation and immediately after asymmetric diverging saccades. Binocular position traces were recorded by video-oculography. Subjects with exophoria showed larger intrasaccadic divergence amplitudes, which in turn led to smaller postsaccadic divergence amplitudes. Visual acuity did not depend on heterophoria or vergence amplitudes. The results suggest that compensating for exophoria requires increased convergence activity as compared to orthophoria or compensated esophoria. Visual acuity seemed relatively robust with respect to postsaccadic vergence movements. Full article

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16 pages, 3391 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Microsaccades and Visual-Spatial Working Memory

by Joshua T. Gaunt and Bruce Bridgeman

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2012, 5(5), 1-16; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.5.5.3 - 25 Sep 2012

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 106

Abstract

Observers performed working memory tasks at varying retinal eccentricities, fixating centrally while microsaccade rates and directions were monitored. We show that microsaccades generate no interference in a working memory task, indicating that spatial working memory is at least partially insulated from oculomotor activity. Intervening tasks during the memory interval affected memory as well as microsaccade patterns. Average microsaccade rate peaks after appearance of a fixation cross at the start of a trial, and dips at cue onset and offset. Direction of stimuli in choice tasks did not influence microsaccade direction, however. Poorer memory accuracy for locations at greater retinal eccentricity calls for revising ideas of short-term spatial representations to include retinotopic or allocentric codes. Full article

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12 pages, 552 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Inhibition of Return After Color Singletons

by Heinz-Werner Priess, Sabine Born and Ulrich Ansorge

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2012, 5(5), 1-12; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.5.5.2 - 17 Sep 2012

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 60

Abstract

Inhibition of return (IOR) is the faster selection of hitherto unattended than previously attended positions. Some previous studies failed to find evidence for IOR after attention capture by color singletons. Others, however, did report IOR effects after color singletons. The current study examines the role of cue relevance for obtaining IOR effects. By using a potentially more sensitive method—saccadic IOR—we tested and found IOR after relevant color singleton cues that required an attention shift (Experiment 1). In contrast, irrelevant color singletons failed to produce reliable IOR effects in Experiment 2. Also, Experiment 2 rules out an alternative explanation of our IOR findings in terms of masking. We discuss our results in light of pertaining theories of IOR. Full article

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11 pages, 1553 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study of Depth Bias of Observers in Free Viewing of Still Stereoscopic Synthetic Stimuli

by Junle Wang, Patrick Le Callet, Sylvain Tourancheau, Vincent Ricordel and Matthieu Perreira Da Silva

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2012, 5(5), 1-11; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.5.5.1 - 6 Sep 2012

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 109

Abstract

Observers’ fixations exhibit a marked bias towards certain areas on the screen when viewing scenes on computer monitors. For instance, there exists a well-known “center-bias” which means that fixations are biased towards the center of the screen during the viewing of 2D still images. In the viewing of 3D content, stereoscopic displays enhance depth perception by the mean of binocular parallax. This additional depth cue has a great influence on guiding eye movements. Relatively little is known about the impact of binocular parallax on visual attention of the 3D content displayed on stereoscopic screen. Several studies mentioned that people tend to look preferably at the objects located at certain positions in depth. But studies proving or quantifying this depth-bias are still limited. In this paper, we conducted a binocular eye-tracking experiment by showing synthetic stimuli on a stereoscopic display. Observers were required to do a free-viewing task through passive polarized glasses. Gaze positions of both eyes were recorded and the depth of eyes’ fixation was determined. The stimuli used in the experiment were designed in such a way that the center-bias and the depth-bias affect eye movements individually. Results indicate the existence of a depth-bias: objects closer to the viewer attract attention earlier than distant objects, and the number of fixations located on objects varies as a function of objects’ depth. The closest object in a scene always attracts most fixations. The fixation distribution along depth also shows a convergent behavior as the viewing time increases. Full article

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J. Eye Mov. Res., Volume 5, Issue 5 (November 2012) – 5 articles

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