EyeLink Cognitive Publications
All EyeLink cognitive and perception research publications up until 2022 (with some early 2023s) are listed below by year. You can search the publications using keywords such as Visual Search, Scene Perception, Face Processing, etc. You can also search for individual author names. If we missed any EyeLink cognitive or perception articles, please email us!
2000 |
Timothy L. Hodgson; Adnan Bajwa; Adrian M. Owen; Christopher Kennard The strategic control of gaze direction in the tower of London task Journal Article In: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 894–907, 2000. @article{Hodgson2000,In this paper, we describe a novel approach to the study of problem solving involving the detailed analysis of natural scanning eye movements during the "one-touch" Tower-of-London (TOL) task. We showed subjects a series of pictures depicting two arrangements of colored balls in pockets within the upper and lower halves of a computer display. The task was to plan (but not to execute) the shortest movement sequence required to rearrange the balls in one half of the display (the Workspace) to match the arrangement in the opposite half (the Goalspace) and indicate the minimum number of moves required for problem solution. We report that subjects are more likely to look towards the Goalspace in the initial period after picture presentation, but bias gaze towards the Workspace during the middle of trials. Towards the end of a trial, subjects are once again more likely to fixate the Goalspace. This pattern is found regardless of whether the subjects solve problems by rearranging the balls in the lower or upper visual fields, demonstrating that this strategy correlates with discrete phases in problem solving. A second experiment showed that efficient planners direct their gaze selectively towards the problem critical balls in the Workspace. In contrast, individuals who make errors spend more time looking at irrelevant items and are strongly influenced by the movement strategy needed to solve the preceding problem. We conclude that efficient solution of the TOL requires the capacity to generate and flexibly shift between control sets, including those underlying ocular scanning. The role of working memory and the prefrontal cerebral cortex in the task are discussed. |
1999 |
Raymond M. Klein; W. Joseph Macinnes Inhibition of return is a foraging facilitator in visual search Journal Article In: Psychological Science, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 346–352, 1999. @article{Klein1999,Using overt orienting, participants searched a complex visual scene for a camouflaged target (Waldo from the “Where's Waldo? ™ ” books). After several saccades, we presented an uncamou- flaged probe (black disk) while removing or maintaining the scene, and participants were required to locate this probe by foveating it. Inhibition of return was observed as a relative increase in the time required to locate these probes when they were in the general region of a previous fixation, but only when the search array remained present. Perhaps also reflecting inhibition of return, preprobe saccades showed a strong directional bias away from a previously fixated region. Together with recent studies that replicate the finding of inhibition at distractor locations following serial but not parallel visual search—so long as the search array remains visible—these data strongly support the proposal that inhibition of return functions to facilitate visual search by inhibiting orienting to previously examined locations. |
Arthur F. Kramer; Sowon Hahn; David E. Irwin; Jan Theeuwes Attentional capture and aging: Implications for visual search performance and oculomotor control Journal Article In: Psychology and Aging, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 135–154, 1999. @article{Kramer1999,Two studies examined potential age-related differences in attentional capture. Subjects were instructed to move their eyes as quickly as possible to a color singleton target and to identify a small letter located inside it. On half the trials, a new stimulus (i.e., a sudden onset) appeared simultaneously with the presentation of the color singleton target. The onset was always a task-irrelevant distractor. Response times were lengthened, for both young and old adults, whenever an onset distractor appeared, despite the fact that subjects reported being unaware of the appearance of the abrupt onset. Eye scan strategies were also disrupted by the appearance of the onset distractors. On about 40% of the trials on which an onset appeared, subjects made an eye movement to the task-irrelevant onset before moving their eyes to the target. Fixations close to the onset were brief, suggesting parallel programming of a reflexive eye movement to the onset and goal-directed eye movement to the target. Results are discussed in terms of age-related sparing of the attentional and oculomotor processes that underlie attentional capture. |
Jan Theeuwes; Arthur F. Kramer; Sowon Hahn; David E. Irwin; Gregory J. Zelinsky Influence of attentional capture on oculomotor control Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 1595–1608, 1999. @article{Theeuwes1999,Previous research has shown that when searching for a color singleton, top-down control cannot prevent attentional capture by an abrupt visual onset. The present research addressed whether a task-irrelevant abrupt onset would affect eye movement behavior when searching for a color singleton. Results show that in many instances the eye moved in the direction of the task-irrelevant abrupt onset. There was evidence that top-down control could neither entirely prevent attentional capture by visual onsets nor prevent the eye from starting to move in the direction of the onset. Results suggest parallel programming of 2 saccades: 1 voluntary goal-directed eye movement toward the color singleton target and 1 stimulus-driven eye movement reflexively elicited by the abrupt onset. A neurophysiologically plausible model that can account for the current findings is discussed. |
Sebastiaan F. W. Neggers; H. Bekkering Integration of visual and somatosensory target information in goal-directed eye and arm movements Journal Article In: Experimental Brain Research, vol. 125, no. 1, pp. 97–107, 1999. @article{Neggers1999,In this study, we compared separate and coordinated eye and hand movements towards visual or somatosensory target stimuli in a dark room, where no visual position information about the hand could be obtained. Experiment 1 showed that saccadic reaction times (RTs) were longer when directed to somatosensory targets than when directed to visual targets in both single- and dual-task conditions. However, for hand movements, this pattern was only found in the dual-task condition and not in the single-task condition. Experiment 1 also showed that correlations between saccadic and hand RTs were significantly higher when directed towards somatosensory targets than when directed towards visual targets. Importantly, experiment 2 indicated that this was not caused by differences in processing times at a perceptual level. Furthermore, hand-pointing accuracy was found to be higher when subjects had to move their eyes as well (dual task) compared to a single-task hand movement. However, this effect was more pronounced for movements to visual targets than to somatosensory targets. A schematic model of sensorimotor transformations for saccadic eye and goal-directed hand movements is proposed and possible shared mechanisms of the two motor systems are discussed. |
Frans W. Cornelissen; John J. Dobbelsteen Heading detection with simulated visual field defects Journal Article In: Visual Impairment Research, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 71–84, 1999. @article{Cornelissen1999,We examined how simulated visual field defects influence performance on a heading task to gain insight into the origins of the poorer performance seen in subjects with real visual field defects. We simulated tunnel vision and a central scotoma during ego-translation. Real-time gaze position was used to generate the appropriate optic flow pattern on the screen. The subjects' task was to direct their gaze at the continuously changing direction of heading. Limiting the peripheral view, as in tunnel vision, or introducing a central scotoma, as in macular degeneration, affected both the accuracy with which subjects could estimate heading direction as well as the time it took them to do this. Under natural circumstances, optic flow patterns can change both smoothly, such as during pursuit of an object, and more abruptly, such as when making saccades. Therefore, we examined performance during both of these types of change. While accuracy was the same under these conditions, processing time was differentially affected. When limiting peripheral view, the influence of the field defect on processing time was larger when the heading changed abruptly than when it changed smoothly. The reverse was the case for simulated central scotomas. The influence of the defect on processing time was largest when the head- ing changed smoothly. Our results further point out that the calculations underlying heading detection can be performed very quickly, with processing time strongly dependent upon the speed of the simulated translation and the size of the stimulated visual area. |
Diane C. Gooding Antisaccade task performance in questionnaire-identified schizotypes Journal Article In: Schizophrenia Research, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 157–166, 1999. @article{Gooding1999,Individuals who scored high on Perceptual Aberration-Magical Ideation Scales (Per-Mag; n = 90), the Social Anhedonia Scale (SocAnh; n = 39), and control participants (n = 89) were administered saccadic refixation (prosaccade) and saccadic suppression (antisaccade) tasks. Eye movements were scored in terms of error rates and latency. None of the groups differed in terms of their performance on the prosaccade task. Both the Per-Mag (p < 0.01) and SocAnh (p < 0.05) groups exceeded the controls in terms of mean antisaccade errors. The high-risk groups did not differ from each other. Eighteen of the Per-Mag individuals and 10 of the SocAnh individuals displayed deviant antisaccade performance. These findings are particularly interesting in light of suggestive evidence that antisaccade task deficits may serve as a marker of susceptibility to schizophrenia. It is hypothesized that the individuals who scored aberrantly on the Chapman scales and displayed antisaccade performance deficits are most likely to be at risk for the development of psychosis. |
1998 |
Jan Theeuwes; Arthur F. Kramer; Sowon Hahn; David E. Irwin Our eyes do not always go where we want them to go: Capture of the eyes by new objects Journal Article In: Psychological Science, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 379–385, 1998. @article{Theeuwes1998,Observers make rapid eye movements to examine the world around them. Before an eye movement is made, attention is covertly shifted to the location of the object of interest. The eyes typically will land at the position at which attention is directed. Here we report that a goal-directed eye movement toward a uniquely colored object is disrupted by the appearance of a new but task-irrelevant object, unless subjects have a sufficient amount of time to focus their attention on the location of the target prior to the appearance of the new object. In many instances, the eyes started moving toward the new object before gaze started to shift to the color-singleton target. The eyes often landed for a very short period of time (25–150 ms) near the new object. The results suggest parallel programming of two saccades: one voluntary, goal-directed eye movement toward the color-singleton target and one stimulus-driven eye movement reflexively elicited by the appearance of the new object. Neuroanatomical structures responsible for parallel programming of saccades are discussed. |
1997 |
Diane E. Williams; Eyal M. Reingold; Morris Moscovitch; Marlene Behrmann Patterns of eye movements during parallel and serial visual search tasks Journal Article In: Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 151–164, 1997. @article{Williams1997,Eye movements were monitored while subjects performed parallel and serial search tasks. In Experiment 1a, subjects searched for an "O" among "X"s (parallel condition) and for a "T" among "L"s (serial condition). In the parallel condition in Experiment 1b, "[symbol: see text]" was the target, and "O"s were distractors; in the serial condition these stimuli switched roles. Displays contained 1, 12, or 24 stimuli, with both target-present and target-absent trials. RT and eye-movement measures (number of fixations, saccadic error, and latency to move) indicated that search efficiency was greatest in the parallel conditions, followed by the serial condition of experiment 1a and, finally, by the serial condition of Experiment 1b. This suggests that eye movements are correlated with the attentional processes underlying visual search. |