Relationships Among Display Features, Eye Movement Characteristics, and Reaction Time in Visual Search

The affective dimension of pain contributes to pain perception. Cognitive load may influence pain-related feelings. Eye tracking has proven useful for detecting cognitive load effects objectively by using relevant eye movement characteristics. In this study, we investigated whether eye movement characteristics differ in response to pain-related feelings in the presence of low and high cognitive loads. A set of validated, control, and pain-related sounds were applied to provoke pain-related feelings. Twelve healthy young participants (six females) performed a cognitive task at two load levels, once with the control and once with pain-related sounds in a randomized order. During the tasks, eye movements and task performance were recorded. Afterwards, the participants were asked to fill out questionnaires on their pain perception in response to the applied cognitive loads. Our findings indicate that an increased cognitive load was associated with a decreased saccade peak velocity, saccade frequency, and fixation frequency, as well as an increased fixation duration and pupil dilation range. Among the oculometrics, pain-related feelings were reflected only in the pupillary responses to a low cognitive load. The performance and perceived cognitive load decreased and increased, respectively, with the task load level and were not influenced by the pain-related sounds. Pain-related feelings were lower when performing the task compared with when no task was being performed in an independent group of participants. This might be due to the cognitive engagement during the task. This study demonstrated that cognitive processing could moderate the feelings associated with pain perception.

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Fixation eye movement abnormalities and stereopsis recovery following strabismus repair

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-93919-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Talora L. Martin ◽

Jordan Murray ◽

Kiran Garg ◽

Charles Gallagher ◽

Aasef G. Shaikh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Functional Improvement ◽

Slow Phase ◽

Fixational Eye Movements ◽

Movement Characteristics ◽

Adaptive Mechanisms ◽

Before And After ◽

Gaze Holding ◽

Fixational Saccades

AbstractWe evaluated the effects of strabismus repair on fixational eye movements (FEMs) and stereopsis recovery in patients with fusion maldevelopment nystagmus (FMN) and patients without nystagmus. Twenty-one patients with strabismus, twelve with FMN and nine without nystagmus, were tested before and after strabismus repair. Eye-movements were recorded during a gaze-holding task under monocular viewing conditions. Fast (fixational saccades and quick phases of nystagmus) and slow (inter-saccadic drifts and slow phases of nystagmus) FEMs and bivariate contour ellipse area (BCEA) were analyzed in the viewing and non-viewing eye. Strabismus repair improved the angle of strabismus in subjects with and without FMN, however patients without nystagmus were more likely to have improvement in stereoacuity. The fixational saccade amplitudes and intersaccadic drift velocities in both eyes decreased after strabismus repair in subjects without nystagmus. The slow phase velocities were higher in patients with FMN compared to inter-saccadic drifts in patients without nystagmus. There was no change in the BCEA after surgery in either group. In patients without nystagmus, the improvement of the binocular function (stereopsis), as well as decreased fixational saccade amplitude and intersaccadic drift velocity, could be due, at least partially, to central adaptive mechanisms rendered possible by surgical realignment of the eyes. The absence of improvement in patients with FMN post strabismus repair likely suggests the lack of such adaptive mechanisms in patients with early onset infantile strabismus. Assessment of fixation eye movement characteristics can be a useful tool to predict functional improvement post strabismus repair.

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Non-parametric test to describe response time and eye movement distributions in visual search

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/10.7.1317 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 10 (7) ◽

pp. 1317-1317

Author(s):

B. Richard ◽

D. Ellemberg ◽

A. Johnson

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Response Time ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Parametric Test ◽

Non Parametric

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Conscious and unconscious memory differentially impact attention: Eye movements, visual search, and recognition processes

10.31234/osf.io/p8qre ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Michelle Ramey ◽

Andrew P. Yonelinas ◽

John M. Henderson

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Eye Movements ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Visual Information ◽

Subjective Memory ◽

Conscious Recollection ◽

Memory Awareness ◽

Efficient Extraction ◽

Subjective Reports ◽

Unconscious Memory

A hotly debated question is whether memory influences attention through conscious or unconscious processes. To address this controversy, we measured eye movements while participants searched repeated real-world scenes for embedded targets, and we assessed memory for each scene using confidence-based methods to isolate different states of subjective memory awareness. We found that memory-informed eye movements during visual search were predicted both by conscious recollection, which led to a highly precise first eye movement toward the remembered location, and by unconscious memory, which increased search efficiency by gradually directing the eyes toward the target throughout the search trial. In contrast, these eye movement measures were not influenced by familiarity-based memory (i.e., changes in subjective reports of memory strength). The results indicate that conscious recollection and unconscious memory can each play distinct and complementary roles in guiding attention to facilitate efficient extraction of visual information.

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Avoiding potential pitfalls in visual search and eye-movement experiments: A tutorial review

Attention Perception & Psychophysics ◽

10.3758/s13414-021-02326-w ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hayward J. Godwin ◽

Michael C. Hout ◽

Katrín J. Alexdóttir ◽

Stephen C. Walenchok ◽

Anthony S. Barnhart

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Data Collection ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Movement Behavior ◽

Popular Approach ◽

Research Cycle ◽

Dependent Variables ◽

Potential Problems ◽

The Moment ◽

The Right

AbstractExamining eye-movement behavior during visual search is an increasingly popular approach for gaining insights into the moment-to-moment processing that takes place when we look for targets in our environment. In this tutorial review, we describe a set of pitfalls and considerations that are important for researchers – both experienced and new to the field – when engaging in eye-movement and visual search experiments. We walk the reader through the research cycle of a visual search and eye-movement experiment, from choosing the right predictions, through to data collection, reporting of methodology, analytic approaches, the different dependent variables to analyze, and drawing conclusions from patterns of results. Overall, our hope is that this review can serve as a guide, a talking point, a reflection on the practices and potential problems with the current literature on this topic, and ultimately a first step towards standardizing research practices in the field.

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