Real and implied motion at the center of gaze

Abstract

Even though the dynamicity of our environment is a given, much of what we know on fixation selection comes from studies of static scene viewing. We performed a direct comparison of fixation selection on static and dynamic visual stimuli and investigated how far identical mechanisms drive these. We recorded eye movements while participants viewed movie clips of natural scenery and static frames taken from the same movies. Both were presented in the same high spatial resolution (1080 × 1920 pixels). The static condition allowed us to check whether local movement features computed from movies are salient even when presented as single frames. We observed that during the first second of viewing, movement and static features are equally salient in both conditions. Furthermore, predictability of fixations based on movement features decreased faster when viewing static frames as compared with viewing movie clips. Yet even during the later portion of static-frame viewing, the predictive value of movement features was still high above chance. Moreover, we demonstrated that, whereas the sets of movement and static features were statistically dependent within these sets, respectively, no dependence was observed between the two sets. Based on these results, we argue that implied motion is predictive of fixation similarly to real movement and that the onset of motion in natural stimuli is more salient than ongoing movement is. The present results allow us to address to what extent and when static image viewing is similar to the perception of a dynamic environment.

Eye Gaze Markers Indicate Visual Attention to Threatening Images in Individuals with Chronic Back Pain

“…Kourtzi et al [9] found greater activation of the medial temporal/medial superior temporal cortex (MT/MST) when viewing photographs with implied movement and imaging studies have supported the role of these brain areas in the analysis of movement, but not object, recognition [28]. Action understanding depends, in part, on prior knowledge about the movement’s goal and intention with predictions about an object’s (or body’s) future position being made from the motion implied in the static image [29]. Participant’s memorial biases modulate the increase in attentional bias to threatening information and, therefore, they perceive implied painful motion in the image (e.g., rotation of the back, which causes them pain); the dynamic images accessing a more meaningful motor representation that is presented for analysis through the variety of eye gaze metrics employed in this study.…”

Development of salience-driven and visually-guided eye movement responses

“…Apparently, the applied approach to calculate ES was not able to identify the target area of Global motion. Alternative salience computations are available to calculate, for example, motion-directed contrast and boundaries (Açik, Bartel, & König, 2014;Black & Anandan, 1996).…”

The inhibitory control reflex

“…In other words, 'STOP' primed the stop goal in only in conditions in which the goal was relevant to the task context. Note that Chiu and Aron have shown that the effects of lowvisibility primes may also be context-dependent (Chiu & Aron, 2014; but see Lin and Murray (2014), who raised some methodological concerns about their priming manipulation). Finally, contingent involuntary response inhibition was also demonstrated by Folk (2012, 2014), who found that flankers that share the colour of a no-go stimulus could suppress motor responses.…”