Confirming Statements about Pictures of Natural Scenes: Evidence of the Processing of Gist from Eye Movements

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p5246 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (9) ◽  
pp. 1069-1082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Underwood ◽  
David Crundall ◽  
Katherine Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Present Experiment ◽  
Natural Scenes ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Advance Information ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Advance Knowledge

Combined displays of graphics and text, such as figure captions in newspapers and books, lead to distinctive inspection patterns, or scanpaths. Readers characteristically look very briefly at the picture, and then read the caption, and then look again at the picture. The initial inspection of the picture is the focus of interest in the present experiment, in which we attempted to modify the inspection by giving participants advance knowledge of the subject of a sentence (the cued object) that was to be verified or denied on the basis of whether it correctly described some aspect of the scene shown in the picture. Eye fixations were recorded while the viewers looked at the picture and the sentence in whatever sequence they chose. By allowing viewers to know the subject of the sentence in advance, we asked whether patterns of fixations on the sentence and on the second inspection of the picture would reflect prior knowledge of the focus of the sentence. Providing advance information did not influence eye movements while reading the sentence. It did, however, increase the number of fixations in the initial inspection of the picture, and it also reduced the number and duration of the fixations on the pictures overall. The results suggest that cueing participants to the object allowed increased coding in the initial inspection of the picture, though the benefit of such coding only becomes apparent when the picture is inspected for the second time.

Eye Movements of Stuttering and Nonstuttering Children during Silent Reading

1984 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Brutten ◽  
K. Bakker ◽  
P. Janssen ◽  
S. Van Der Meulen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Frame Analysis ◽  
Silent Reading ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Reading Errors ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Computer Controlled

During the silent reading of a 320-word passage, the eye movements of 22 grade school stutterers and 22 nonstutterers were recorded by means of a computer-controlled eye-marker. The recordings were made as a means of determining if the eye movements of the two groups differed and if the differences suggested that the young stutterers showed evidence of word-specific expectancy. Frame-by-frame analysis of the recordings revealed that the stuttering children displayed significantly more eye fixations and eye regressions than the nonstuttering children. The correlations among the different types of eye measures also varied between the subject groups. The differences observed were present despite the fact that the reading level of the two groups was age appropriate and the subjects sampled did not differ significantly in either reading errors or comprehension. These findings are like those previously found when stuttering and nonstuttering adults were similarly tested. They imply that expectancy is not the response province of older stutterers.

scholarly journals Comprehension and Eye Movements in the Processing of Subject- and Object-Relative Clauses: Evidence from Dyslexia and Individual Differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 915
Author(s):  
Marianna Stella ◽  
Paul E. Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Sentence Type ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Processing Difficulty ◽  
Object Relative

In this study, we examined eye movements and comprehension in sentences containing a relative clause. To date, few studies have focused on syntactic processing in dyslexia and so one goal of the study is to contribute to this gap in the experimental literature. A second goal is to contribute to theoretical psycholinguistic debate concerning the cause and the location of the processing difficulty associated with object-relative clauses. We compared dyslexic readers (n = 50) to a group of non-dyslexic controls (n = 50). We also assessed two key individual differences variables (working memory and verbal intelligence), which have been theorised to impact reading times and comprehension of subject- and object-relative clauses. The results showed that dyslexics and controls had similar comprehension accuracy. However, reading times showed participants with dyslexia spent significantly longer reading the sentences compared to controls (i.e., a main effect of dyslexia). In general, sentence type did not interact with dyslexia status. With respect to individual differences and the theoretical debate, we found that processing difficulty between the subject and object relatives was no longer significant when individual differences in working memory were controlled. Thus, our findings support theories, which assume that working memory demands are responsible for the processing difficulty incurred by (1) individuals with dyslexia and (2) object-relative clauses as compared to subject relative clauses.

scholarly journals Selection of visual information for lightness judgements by eye movements

2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1628) ◽  
pp. 20130056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Toscani ◽  
Matteo Valsecchi ◽  
Karl R. Gegenfurtner
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Visual System ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Sampling Strategy ◽  
Selection Strategy ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Target Layer ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Selection Of

When judging the lightness of objects, the visual system has to take into account many factors such as shading, scene geometry, occlusions or transparency. The problem then is to estimate global lightness based on a number of local samples that differ in luminance. Here, we show that eye fixations play a prominent role in this selection process. We explored a special case of transparency for which the visual system separates surface reflectance from interfering conditions to generate a layered image representation. Eye movements were recorded while the observers matched the lightness of the layered stimulus. We found that observers did focus their fixations on the target layer, and this sampling strategy affected their lightness perception. The effect of image segmentation on perceived lightness was highly correlated with the fixation strategy and was strongly affected when we manipulated it using a gaze-contingent display. Finally, we disrupted the segmentation process showing that it causally drives the selection strategy. Selection through eye fixations can so serve as a simple heuristic to estimate the target reflectance.

scholarly journals Striving towards Social Relevance: New Curatorial Interpretations of the Soviet Period in Estonian and Latvian Museums

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-211
Author(s):  
Anu Kannike ◽  
Jana Reidla
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Voice

The main museums in Estonia and Latvia have lately staged new exhibitions that proceed from a contemporary museological approach and reflect the results of historical research. The article compares three cases which present alternative but complementary interpretations of the Soviet period. The authors pay special attention to the application of the biographical method prominent in contemporary cultural research, and the museological method of multivocality. They conclude that in the case of multivocality, effectively addressing different visitor groups is a great challenge to curators. There is a risk that the simplified mediation of contradictory memories and views will leave a gap for visitors with less prior knowledge about the subject of the exhibition. In large exhibition teams, the curator has a crucial role to play in negotiating with team members to prevent the concept from dispersing. In the cases studied, it is possible to observe the curators’ views and detect a similar attempt to interpret complex topics through biographies. The analysis concludes that in the context of contemporary museological approaches, the voice of the curator remains essential, especially when mediating exhibits, for they cannot speak for themselves.

Information Transmission during Eye Movements

1979 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert E. Bartz
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Information Transmission ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
Threshold Functions ◽  
Compensatory Movement ◽  
The Subject

Target stimuli (the numeral 5 at 60 degrees to the left of the subject's fixation point) were extinguished at various times during the subject's eye movement to that stimulus and the subject was asked to guess what numeral had occurred. Threshold functions were constructed from these data, and it was found that at the beginning of the backward compensatory movement, very little information was transmitted. However, as the backward compensatory movement progressed, there was an increase in the correct identification of the stimulus, and a threshold was reached before the forward compensatory movement began.

Aesthetic Evaluation of Computer Icons: Visual Pattern Differences Between Art-Trained and Lay Raters of Icons

2020 ◽  
pp. 003151252096963
Author(s):  
Zhiguo Hu ◽  
Xinrui Wang ◽  
Xinkui Hu ◽  
Xiaofang Lei ◽  
Hongyan Liu
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Design Strategy ◽  
Aesthetic Appreciation ◽  
Aesthetic Evaluation ◽  
Visual Patterns ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Computer Icons

Adopting eye-tracking measures, we explored the influence of art experience on the aesthetic evaluation of computer icons. Participants were 27 college students with art training and 27 laypersons. Both groups rated icons of varying complexity and symmetry for “beauty” while we recorded participants’ eye movements. Results showed that art-trained participants viewed the icons with more eye fixations and had shorter scanning paths than participants in the non-art group, suggesting that art-trained participants processed the icons more deliberately. In addition, we observed an interaction effect between art experience and symmetry. For asymmetrical icons, art-trained participants’ ratings tended to be higher than those of lay persons; for symmetric icons, there was no such rater difference. The different visual patterns associated with aesthetic evaluations by these two participant groups suggest that art experience plays a pivotal role in the aesthetic appreciation of icons and has important implications for icon design strategy.

Natural scenes have matched amplitude-modulated sounds that systematically influence visual scanning

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Marcia Grabowecky ◽  
Aleksandra Sherman ◽  
Satoru Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Spatial Frequency ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
High Spatial Frequency ◽  
Visual Object ◽  
Natural Scenes ◽  
Scale Invariant ◽  
Visual Coding ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Spatial Frequencies

We have previously demonstrated a linear perceptual relationship between auditory amplitude-modulation (AM) rate and visual spatial-frequency using gabors as the visual stimuli. Can this frequency-based auditory–visual association influence perception of natural scenes? Participants consistently matched specific auditory AM rates to diverse visual scenes (nature, urban, and indoor). A correlation analysis indicated that higher subjective density ratings were associated with faster AM-rate matches. Furthermore, both the density ratings and AM-rate matches were relatively scale invariant, suggesting that the underlying crossmodal association is between visual coding of object-based density and auditory coding of AM rate. Based on these results, we hypothesized that concurrently presented fast (7 Hz) or slow (2 Hz) AM-rates might influence how visual attention is allocated to dense or sparse regions within a scene. We tested this hypothesis by monitoring eye movements while participants examined scenes for a subsequent memory task. To determine whether fast or slow sounds guided eye movements to specific spatial frequencies, we computed the maximum contrast energy at each fixation across 12 spatial frequency bands ranging from 0.06–10.16 cycles/degree. We found that the fast sound significantly guided eye movements toward regions of high spatial frequency, whereas the slow sound guided eye movements away from regions of high spatial frequency. This suggests that faster sounds may promote a local scene scanning strategy, acting as a ‘filter’ to individuate objects within dense regions. Our results suggest that auditory AM rate and visual object density are crossmodally associated, and that this association can modulate visual inspection of scenes.

Extracting Distributed Orientations in Different Contexts

Perception ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 17-17
Author(s):  
C Bonnet ◽  
A Dufour
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Reaction Time ◽  
Present Experiment ◽  
Reaction Time Paradigm ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Similar Elements ◽  
Regular Spacing ◽  
Surface Background

It has been shown that discriminating the orientations of a target is influenced by the spatial distribution of the orientations of similar elements in the background. However, this effect appears to be essentially decisional (Dufour and Bonnet, 1995 Spatial Vision9 307 – 324). In the present experiment, we explored the accuracy with which subjects can discriminate relative proportions of orientations distributed over a surface (background). Stimuli were textures made of 100 segments with regular spacing. Each of the segments had one of four possible orientations. For each display, one of the orientations was overrepresented (31%, 37%, 43% and 49%). The task of the subject was to discriminate, in a reaction-time paradigm, which of the four orientations was more frequent within a given display. Three spatial conditions were used. In condition 1, the different orientations were randomly distributed over the surface. In the two other conditions, nine elements of the same orientation formed a group within one region of the texture. In condition 2, these grouped elements had the over-represented orientation. In condition 3, they had one of the three under-represented orientations. Grouping of the oriented elements has a facilitating effect when it contains the over-represented orientation, and a negative effect when it contains one of the under-represented orientations. There are good reasons to think that these interferences are decisional rather than sensorial.

scholarly journals Voluntary Spatial Attention has Different Effects on Voluntary and Reflexive Saccades

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 881-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie K. Seidlits ◽  
Tammie Reza ◽  
Kevin A. Briand ◽  
Anne B. Sereno
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Saccadic Eye Movements ◽  
Fundamental Issue ◽  
Fixation Condition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Symbolic Cues ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Reflexive Saccades ◽  
Gap Paradigm

Although numerous studies have investigated the relationship between saccadic eye movements and spatial attention, one fundamental issue remains controversial. Some studies have suggested that spatial attention facilitates saccades, whereas others have claimed that eye movements are actually inhibited when spatial attention is engaged. However, these discrepancies may be because previous research has neglected to separate and specify the effects of attention for two distinct types of saccades, namely reflexive (stimulus-directed) and voluntary (antisaccades). The present study explored the effects of voluntary spatial attention on both voluntary and reflexive saccades. Results indicate that voluntary spatial attention has different effects on the two types of saccades. Antisaccades were always greatly facilitated following the engagement of spatial attention by symbolic cues (arrows) informing the subject where the upcoming saccade should be directed. Reflexive saccades showed little or no cueing effects and exhibited significant facilitation only when these cues were randomly intermixed with uncued trials. In addition, the present study tested the effects of fixation condition (gap, step, and overlap) on attentional modulation. Cueing effects did not vary due to fixation condition. Thus, voluntary spatial attention consistently showed different effects on voluntary and reflexive saccades, and there was no evidence in these studies that voluntary cues inhibit reflexive saccades, even in a gap paradigm.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Student Feedback Within a MOOC Using Sentiment Analysis and Target Groups

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karsten Lundqvist ◽  
Tharindu Liyanagunawardena ◽  
Louise Starkey
Keyword(s):  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Computer Programming ◽  
Student Experience ◽  
Target Group ◽  
Student Feedback ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
The Subject

Many course designers trying to evaluate the experience of participants in a MOOC will find it difficult to track and analyse the online actions and interactions of students because there may be thousands of learners enrolled in courses that sometimes last only a few weeks. This study explores the use of automated sentiment analysis in assessing student experience in a beginner computer programming MOOC. A dataset of more than 25,000 online posts made by participants during the course was analysed and compared to student feedback. The results were further analysed by grouping participants according to their prior knowledge of the subject: beginner, experienced, and unknown. In this study, the average sentiment expressed through online posts reflected the feedback statements. Beginners, the target group for the MOOC, were more positive about the course than experienced participants, largely due to the extra assistance they received. Many experienced participants had expected to learn about topics that were beyond the scope of the MOOC. The results suggest that MOOC designers should consider using sentiment analysis to evaluate student feedback and inform MOOC design.

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