Abstract:The present study investigated the dynamic of the attention focus during observation of different categories of complex scenes and simultaneous consideration of individuals' memory and motivational state. We repeatedly presented four types of complex visual scenes in a pseudo-randomized order and recorded eye movements. Subjects were divided into groups according to their motivational disposition in terms of action orientation and individual rating of scene interest.Statistical analysis of eye-tracking data re… Show more
“…Each image of the whole stimulus set occurred only once per participant. The images were centered on the screen and presented for 6 s each, following previous studies 23, 26, 29 . Between trials, participants had to fixate a central dot used for drift correction and to reset the eye position to the center of the screen.Figure 2Structure of one of four experimental sessions with randomized order of blocks.…”
Many eye-tracking studies investigate visual behavior with a focus on image features and the semantic content of a scene. A wealth of results on these aspects is available, and our understanding of the decision process where to look has reached a mature stage. However, the temporal aspect, whether to stay and further scrutinize a region (exploitation) or to move on and explore image regions that were yet not in the focus of attention (exploration) is less well understood. Here, we investigate the trade-off between these two processes across stimuli with varying properties and sizes. In a free viewing task, we examined gaze parameters in humans, involving the central tendency, entropy, saccadic amplitudes, number of fixations and duration of fixations. The results revealed that the central tendency and entropy scaled with stimulus size. The mean saccadic amplitudes showed a linear increase that originated from an interaction between the distribution of saccades and the spatial bias. Further, larger images led to spatially more extensive sampling as indicated by a higher number of fixations at the expense of reduced fixation durations. These results demonstrate a profound shift from exploitation to exploration as an adaptation of main gaze parameters with increasing image size.
“…Each image of the whole stimulus set occurred only once per participant. The images were centered on the screen and presented for 6 s each, following previous studies 23, 26, 29 . Between trials, participants had to fixate a central dot used for drift correction and to reset the eye position to the center of the screen.Figure 2Structure of one of four experimental sessions with randomized order of blocks.…”
Many eye-tracking studies investigate visual behavior with a focus on image features and the semantic content of a scene. A wealth of results on these aspects is available, and our understanding of the decision process where to look has reached a mature stage. However, the temporal aspect, whether to stay and further scrutinize a region (exploitation) or to move on and explore image regions that were yet not in the focus of attention (exploration) is less well understood. Here, we investigate the trade-off between these two processes across stimuli with varying properties and sizes. In a free viewing task, we examined gaze parameters in humans, involving the central tendency, entropy, saccadic amplitudes, number of fixations and duration of fixations. The results revealed that the central tendency and entropy scaled with stimulus size. The mean saccadic amplitudes showed a linear increase that originated from an interaction between the distribution of saccades and the spatial bias. Further, larger images led to spatially more extensive sampling as indicated by a higher number of fixations at the expense of reduced fixation durations. These results demonstrate a profound shift from exploitation to exploration as an adaptation of main gaze parameters with increasing image size.
“…The amygdala obviously responds more strongly to such indirectly mediated emotions. However, especially for studies on overt attention, not only the affective impact of images should be considered, but also the image characteristics which revealed a very strong impact on the attention focus (see, e.g., Kaspar and König, 2011a,b). In general, many studies use human faces to induce different emotion conditions.…”
Section: The Impact Of Emotion On Attentionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Rather, it could be fruitful to elucidate the specific interactions between current situational factors and time-invariant personality traits to reveal further interesting effects. In a recent study Kaspar and König (2011a), we investigated changes in eye movement parameters during complex scenes repeatedly presented in a long sequence of stimuli. In this context, we also considered the subjects' global interest in the stimulus set, as well as their general ability to stay within interesting activities without shifting prematurely to alternative activities labeled as the personality trait “action orientation regarding the performance of activities” (AOP; Kuhl, 1994).…”
Section: The Impact Of Personality Traits On Attentionmentioning
The visual sense has outstanding significance for human perception and behavior, and visual attention plays a central role in the processing of the sensory input. Thereby, multiple low- and high-level factors contribute to the guidance of attention. The present review focuses on two neglected high-level factors: emotion and personality. The review starts with an overview of different models of attention, providing a conceptual framework and illustrating the nature of low- and high-level factors in visual attention. Then, the ambiguous concept of emotion is described, and recommendations are made for the experimental practice. In the following, we present several studies showing the influence of emotion on overt attention, whereby the distinction between internally and externally located emotional impacts are emphasized. We also provide evidence showing that emotional stimuli influence perceptual processing outside of the focus of attention, whereby results in this field are mixed. Then, we present some detached studies showing the reversed causal effect: attention can also affect emotional responses. The final section on emotion–attention interactions addresses the interplay on the neuronal level, which has been neglected for a long time in neuroscience. In this context, several conceptual recommendations for future research are made. Finally, based on findings showing inter-individual differences in human sensitivity to emotional items, we introduce the wide range of time-independent personality traits that also influence attention, and in this context we try to raise awareness of the consideration of inter-individual differences in the field of neuroscience.
“…In Study 2, we implemented a more sophisticated design to (1) replicate the findings of Study 1, (2) enlarge the findings on neutral target images differing in gist, and (3) enable a comparison between the data of the present study and one of our previous studies [21]. The latter study serves as the baseline condition in which subjects observed images under the same natural conditions, but without an emotional context…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 98%
“…A hierarchical model preferring cognitive top-down influences, if present [13], or a combination of both stimulus-driven and cognitive high-level aspects [14], [15], [16], emphasizes the need to consider top-down influences on attention processes. Such research on the impact of higher cognitive functions on attention concentrates on visual search, memory, or previous knowledge [9], [15], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25]. Remarkably, investigations on the impact of the emotional state as an integral part of cognition [26] on visual perception are rare.…”
Human overt attention under natural conditions is guided by stimulus features as well as by higher cognitive components, such as task and emotional context. In contrast to the considerable progress regarding the former, insight into the interaction of emotions and attention is limited. Here we investigate the influence of the current emotional context on viewing behavior under natural conditions.In two eye-tracking studies participants freely viewed complex scenes embedded in sequences of emotion-laden images. The latter primes constituted specific emotional contexts for neutral target images.Viewing behavior toward target images embedded into sets of primes was affected by the current emotional context, revealing the intensity of the emotional context as a significant moderator. The primes themselves were not scanned in different ways when presented within a block (Study 1), but when presented individually, negative primes were more actively scanned than positive primes (Study 2). These divergent results suggest an interaction between emotional priming and further context factors. Additionally, in most cases primes were scanned more actively than target images. Interestingly, the mere presence of emotion-laden stimuli in a set of images of different categories slowed down viewing activity overall, but the known effect of image category was not affected. Finally, viewing behavior remained largely constant on single images as well as across the targets' post-prime positions (Study 2).We conclude that the emotional context significantly influences the exploration of complex scenes and the emotional context has to be considered in predictions of eye-movement patterns.
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