Been there, seen that, done that: Modification of visual exploration across repeated exposures

Abstract

The underlying factors that determine gaze position are a central topic in visual cognitive research. Traditionally, studies emphasized the interaction between the lowlevel properties of an image and gaze position. Later studies examined the influence of the semantic properties of an image. These studies explored gaze behavior during a single presentation, thus ignoring the impact of familiarity. Sparse evidence suggested that across repetitive exposures, gaze exploration attenuates but the correlation between gaze position and the lowlevel features of the image remains stable. However, these studies neglected two fundamental issues: (a) repeated scenes are displayed later in the testing session, such that exploration attenuation could be a result of lethargy, and (b) even if these effects are related to familiarity, are they based on a verbatim familiarity with the image, or on high-level familiarity with the gist of the scene? We investigated these issues by exposing participants to a sequence of images, some of them repeated across blocks. We found fewer, longer fixations as familiarity increased, along with shorter saccades and decreased gaze allocation towards semantically meaningful regions. These effects could not be ascribed to tonic fatigue, since they did not manifest for images that changed across blocks. Moreover, there was no attenuation of gaze behavior when participants observed a flipped version of the familiar images, suggesting that gist familiarity is not sufficient for eliciting these effects. These findings contribute to the literature on memory-guided gaze behavior and provide novel insights into the mechanism underlying the visual exploration of familiar environments.

Not all fixations are created equal: The benefits of using ex-Gaussian modeling of fixation durations

“…Overall, the previous study ( Lancry-Dayan et al, 2019 ) reported a similar pattern of results in all experiments: as the images became more familiar across repetitive exposures, the mean fixation duration increased significantly. In the second and third experiments, these findings were only observed for the repeated images (and not for the novel images that changed on each block), thus strengthening the claim that familiarity is likely to be the cause of the prolonged fixations.…”

“…This dataset comprised three experiments. The first two experiments have been published elsewhere (Lancry-Dayan, Kupershmidt, & Pertzov, 2019). Note that the original study included another experiment that was excluded here because of a problem in its design (also reported in the original article).…”

Visual Exploration at Higher Fixation Frequency Increases Subsequent Memory Recall

“…In fact, there is evidence suggesting that previous experiences might influence visual exploration, including the number of fixations ( Sharot et al. 2008 ; Hannula 2010 ; Wolfe and Horowitz 2017 ; Lancry-Dayan et al. 2019 ).…”

Keep an eye on your belongings: Gaze dynamics toward familiar and unfamiliar objects.

“…Second, to confirm that the described effects are not driven by the location of the familiar object on the screen, we decided to present each object four times in the parallel display, once in each location. While this feature can be justified in light of counterbalancing considerations, previous studies suggest that repetition may also influence the viewing patterns (Althoff & Cohen, 1999;Lancry-Dayan et al, 2019;Ryan et al, 2000). To overcome this issue, we analyzed only trials in which the familiar object has appeared for the first time (see the online supplementary materials).…”

“…The repetitive presentation of objects across the experiment was designed to control for possible artifacts (e.g., the location on the screen in the parallel display). However, these repetitions could also modify different aspects of gaze behavior (Althoff & Cohen, 1999;Lancry-Dayan et al, 2019;Ryan et al, 2000). To rule out such possibility, we report in the online supplementary materials an analysis conducted only on the first repetition of the familiar object.…”