Studying “natural” eye movements in an “unnatural” social environment: The influence of social activity, framing, and sub-clinical traits on gaze aversion

Experimental psychologists frequently present participants with social stimuli (videos or pictures) and measure behavioural responses. Such designs are problematic in that they remove the potential for social interaction and inadvertently restrict our eyes multifaceted nature as a tool to both perceive and communicate with others. The aim of this study was to develop a new paradigm within which we can easily and reliably measure the influence of top-down processes (belief), social activity (talking and listening), and possible clinical traits (gaze anxiety, and social interaction difficulties) onto gaze behaviours. Participants were engaged in a “real” or pre-recorded Skype conversation. Findings suggest that participants who believed they were engaging in a real conversation spent less time looking at the speaker’s eyes, but no differences were found for dwell time onto the whole face. Within our non-clinical sample, higher levels of gaze anxiety resulted in reduced dwell time onto the whole face but not eyes, whereas social interaction difficulties produced reduced dwell time onto the eyes only. Finally, talking consistently produced reduced dwell time onto the whole face and eyes regardless of any other conditions.

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Visual asymmetries during face encoding Increased dwell time and fixations in the upper and left hemifields

10.31234/osf.io/pc649 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Fatima Maria Felisberti

Keyword(s):

Face Recognition ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Visual Field ◽

Face Processing ◽

Dwell Time ◽

The Other ◽

Environmental Cues ◽

Reading Habits ◽

The Right

Visual field asymmetries (VFA) in the encoding of groups rather than individual faces has been rarely investigated. Here, eye movements (dwell time (DT) and fixations (Fix)) were recorded during the encoding of three groups of four faces tagged with cheating, cooperative, or neutral behaviours. Faces in each of the three groups were placed in the upper left (UL), upper right (UR), lower left (LL), or lower right (LR) quadrants. Face recognition was equally high in the three groups. In contrast, the proportion of DT and Fix were higher for faces in the left than the right hemifield and in the upper rather than the lower hemifield. The overall time spent looking at the UL was higher than in the other quadrants. The findings are relevant to the understanding of VFA in face processing, especially groups of faces, and might be linked to environmental cues and/or reading habits.

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From Top-Down Control to Self-Organisation: The “Thaw” and Motor Action Theory

Philosophical Literary Journal Logos ◽

10.22394/0869-5377-2020-2-129-152 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 30 (2) ◽

pp. 129-156

Author(s):

Irina Sirotkina

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Action Theory ◽

Scientific Progress ◽

Mathematical Concept ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Top Down ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

New Models ◽

Democratic Principles ◽

Moscow School

The period from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s in the Soviet Union was known as the “Thaw,” a political era that fostered hopes of restoring the rule of law and democracy to the country. In that period cybernetics came to symbolize both scientific progress and social change. The Soviet intelligentsia had survived the hardship of Stalinist repression and now regarded the new discipline, which brought together the natural sciences and the human sciences, as a pathway to building a freer and more equal society. After decades of domination by Pavlovian doctrine, a paradigm shift was under way in physiology and psychology. Cybernetics reinforced the new paradigm, which put forward ideas of purposive behavior and self-organization in living and non-living systems. The conditioned reflex and a simplistic one-to-one view of connections in the nervous system gave way to more sophisticated and complex models, which could be formalized mathematically. Previous models of control in living organisms were mostly hierarchical and included top-down control of peripheral movement by the motor centers. The new models supplemented this picture with feedback commands from the periphery to the center. By the time cybernetics had made its appearance in the Soviet Union, new models of control had already been formulated in physiology by Nikolay Bernstein (1896– 1966). He termed the feedback from afferent signals “sensorial corrections,” meaning that they play an important part in adapting central control to the changing situation at the periphery of movement. The new paradigm emphasized horizontal connections over vertical ones, and new models took hold based on less “totalitarian” and more “democratic” principles, such as the idea of automatic or autonomous functioning of intermediate centers, the mathematical concept of well-organized functions, the theory of “the collective behavior of automata,” etc. This line of research was carried out in the USSR as well as abroad by Bernstein’s students and followers who formed the Moscow School of Motor Control. The author argues that this preference for less hierarchical models was one expression of the Thaw’s trend toward liberalization of life within the USSR and greater involvement in international politics.

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Tracking eye movements when solving geometry problems with handwriting devices

Journal of Eye Movement Research ◽

10.16910/jemr.7.1.2 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

Author(s):

John J. H. Lin ◽

Sunny S. J. Lin

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Dwell Time ◽

Problem Area ◽

Instructional Designers ◽

Perceived Difficulty ◽

Problem Solvers ◽

Similar Triangles ◽

The Relationship ◽

Sensitive Pressure

The present study investigated the following issues: (1) whether differences are evident in the eye movement measures of successful and unsuccessful problem-solvers; (2) what is the relationship between perceived difficulty and eye movement measures; and (3) whether eye movements in various AOIs differ when solving problems. Sixty-three 11th grade students solved five geometry problems about the properties of similar triangles. A digital drawing tablet and sensitive pressure pen were used to record the responses. The results indicated that unsuccessful solvers tended to have more fixation counts, run counts, and longer dwell time on the problem area, whereas successful solvers focused more on the calculation area. In addition, fixation counts, dwell time, and run counts in the diagram area were positively correlated with the perceived difficulty, suggesting that understanding similar triangles may require translation or mental rotation. We argue that three eye movement measures (i.e., fixation counts, dwell time, and run counts) are appropriate for use in examining problem solving given that they differentiate successful from unsuccessful solvers and correlate with perceived difficulty. Furthermore, the eye-tracking technique provides objective measures of students’ cognitive load for instructional designers.

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Supplemental Material for Failures in Top-Down Control in Schizophrenia Revealed by Patterns of Saccadic Eye Movements

Journal of Abnormal Psychology ◽

10.1037/abn0000442.supp ◽

2019 ◽

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Top Down

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Modeling the Influences of Cyclic Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processes for Reinforcement Learning in Eye Movements

IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics - Part A Systems and Humans ◽

10.1109/tsmca.2009.2018635 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 39 (4) ◽

pp. 706-714 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Ji Hyoun Lim ◽

Yili Liu

Keyword(s):

Reinforcement Learning ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up

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Top-Down versus Bottom-up Control of Saccades in Texture Perception

Perception ◽

10.1068/v970141 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 26 (1_suppl) ◽

pp. 162-162 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

R Groner ◽

A von Mühlenen ◽

M Groner

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Spatial Frequency ◽

Target Stimulus ◽

Saccadic Eye Movements ◽

Landing Site ◽

Luminance Contrast ◽

Eye Tracker ◽

Top Down ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Low Pass

An experiment was conducted to examine the influence of luminance, contrast, and spatial frequency content on saccadic eye movements. 112 pictures of natural textures from Brodatz were low-pass filtered (0.04 – 0.76 cycles deg−1) and high-pass filtered (1.91 – 19.56 cycles deg−1) and varied in luminance (low and high) and contrast (low and high), resulting in eight images per texture. Circular clippings of the central parts of the images (approximately 15% of the whole image) were used as stimuli. In the condition of bottom - up processing, the eight stimuli derived from one texture were presented for 1500 ms in a circular arrangement around the fixation cross. They were followed by a briefly presented target stimulus in the centre, which in half the trials was identical to one of the eight test stimuli. Participants had to decide whether the target stimulus was identical to any of the preceding stimuli. During a trial, their eye movements were recorded by means of a Dual-Purkinje-Image eye tracker. In the top - down condition, the target stimulus was presented in each trial prior to the display of the test stimulus. It was assumed that the priming with a target produced a top - down processing of the test stimuli. The latency and landing site of the first saccade were computed and compared between the top - down and bottom - up conditions. It is hypothesised that stimulus characteristics (luminance, contrast, and spatial frequency) play a more prominent role in bottom - up processing, while top - down processing is adjusted to the particular characteristics of the prime.

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Social Improvement after the Wilke Procedure for Excessive Drooling

The Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal ◽

10.1597/1545-1569_1993_030_0508_siatwp_2.3.co_2 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 30 (5) ◽

pp. 508-510 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Charles L. Puckett ◽

Matthew J. Concannon ◽

David Mcnaul ◽

Constance Barone

Keyword(s):

Cerebral Palsy ◽

Social Interaction ◽

Social Deprivation ◽

Social Activity ◽

Social Contact ◽

High Rate ◽

Dramatic Improvement ◽

Craniofacial Malformations ◽

Rate Of Success ◽

Social Improvement

The child with an excessive drooling problem often faces similar social deprivation to those with severe craniofacial malformations. Many of these children have other “strikes against them” (such as cerebral palsy) that, when coupled with drooling, isolate them from social interaction. Many methods have been employed to control drooling but surgery has been most consistently successful. The most popular of these has been the Wilke procedure or a modification of It. Several series have been reported, but a detailed correlation of mechanical success with the effects on social activity has not been reported. We reviewed a series of 23 cases of Wilke-type surgery. Analysis of the results showed a convincing Improvement in social activity after successful surgery. The Wilke procedure enjoys a relatively high rate of success In preventing excessive drooling, which seems to offer a dramatic improvement in social contact enjoyment.

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