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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Are changes in semantic and structural information sufficient for oculomotor capture?

Jason H Wong¹, Matthew S Peterson, Anne P Hillstrom

¹Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA. jwong1@gmu.edu

Journal of Vision

|November 14, 2007

Summary

Abrupt object onsets capture attention more effectively than semantic or structural changes alone. New object information is less potent in guiding eye movements compared to sudden appearances.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Visual Attention

Background:

Abrupt object onsets involuntarily capture attention and eye movements.
The new-object hypothesis suggests new information, not just visual transients, drives attention reorientation.

Purpose of the Study:

To determine if semantic and structural changes alone can capture eye movements as strongly as abrupt onsets.
Investigating the role of new object information versus perceptual transients in visual capture.

Main Methods:

Participants were instructed to move their eyes to a target object.
A distractor object either abruptly appeared (onset) or smoothly morphed into a new form.
Eye movements were tracked to assess initial fixation patterns.

Main Results:

Objects that smoothly morphed were fixated less often initially compared to abruptly appearing objects.
Abrupt onsets demonstrated a stronger capture of eye movements than morphing objects.

Conclusions:

New semantic and structural information alone is significantly less effective at capturing the eyes than abrupt onsets.
Visual transients associated with abrupt onsets play a crucial role in involuntary attention capture.