Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Naturalistic Observations

Naturalistic Observations

If you want to understand how behavior occurs, one of the best ways to gain information is to simply observe the behavior in its natural context. However, people might change their behavior in unexpected ways if they know they are being observed. How do researchers obtain accurate information when people tend to hide their natural behavior? As an example, imagine that your professor asks everyone in your class to raise their hand if they always wash their hands after using the restroom. Chances...

Optimal Foraging

Optimal Foraging

How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.

What is Behavior?

What is Behavior?

Behaviors are actions that an organism engages in—they can be related to finding food, reproducing, defending against threats, and many other possible actions. Behaviors include activities related to the environment around the animal—such as migration—as well as social interactions within a species or population. Many behaviors involve motor output—that is, muscle movements—while others involve less visible actions, such as learning.

Actor-Observer Effect

Actor-Observer Effect

The actor-observer effect, a cognitive bias closely linked to the fundamental attribution error, refers to the tendency for individuals to attribute their behavior to external, situational factors while explaining others’ behavior in terms of internal, dispositional traits. This asymmetry in attribution significantly influences social perception and judgment.Cognitive Mechanisms Behind the EffectTwo primary psychological mechanisms contribute to the actor-observer effect: differences in...

Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective

Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective

In a study where individuals posing as strangers offered compliments and proposed casual sex to students, the responses differed significantly based on gender. Not a single woman accepted the proposal, while 70% of the men agreed. This outcome provides a useful scenario to explore through the lens of evolutionary psychology and social learning theory, highlighting the diverse perspectives on human sexual behaviors.
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...

Behaviorism

Behaviorism

The field of behaviorism was pioneered by figures such as Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and B.F. Skinner fundamentally shifted the focus of psychology to the observable and controllable aspects of human and animal behavior. This shift marked a critical evolution in the discipline, emphasizing scientific rigor and experimental methodology.
The core premise of behaviorism is its focus on observable behavior rather than internal thoughts or feelings. This approach argues that true scientific...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Fixation duration on natural scenes is explained by memory encoding not processing demand.

Nature neuroscience·2026

Same author

Mobile eye tracking in the real world: Best practices.

Journal of vision·2026

Same author

Beyond the first glance: How human presence enhances visual entropy and promotes spatial learning.

PLoS computational biology·2026

Same author

Maternal antibiotic exposure-mediated alterations in basal, and allergen-induced lung function are associated with altered recruitment of eosinophils to the developing lung.

Frontiers in immunology·2026

Same author

Exploring Brain Dynamics Within the Approach-Avoidance Bias.

Brain sciences·2025

Same author

Guide to dynamic OCT data analysis.

Biomedical optics express·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 2, 2026

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

Published on: August 4, 2023

Exploration and Exploitation in Natural Viewing Behavior.

Ricardo Ramos Gameiro¹, Kai Kaspar^2,3, Sabine U König²

¹Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany. rramosga@uni-osnabrueck.de.

Scientific Reports

|May 25, 2017

Summary

This study reveals how humans balance focusing on details (exploitation) versus exploring new areas (exploration) when viewing images. Image size significantly influences this trade-off, shifting gaze behavior towards broader exploration for larger stimuli.

More Related Videos

Decoding Natural Behavior from Neuroethological Embedding

Decoding Natural Behavior from Neuroethological Embedding

Published on: October 3, 2025

Novel Object Exploration as a Potential Assay for Higher Order Repetitive Behaviors in Mice

Novel Object Exploration as a Potential Assay for Higher Order Repetitive Behaviors in Mice

Published on: August 20, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Mar 2, 2026

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

Author Spotlight: A Novel Setup to Conduct Naturalistic Laboratory Experiments with Real Human Actors in Scenarios

Published on: August 4, 2023

Decoding Natural Behavior from Neuroethological Embedding

Decoding Natural Behavior from Neuroethological Embedding

Published on: October 3, 2025

Novel Object Exploration as a Potential Assay for Higher Order Repetitive Behaviors in Mice

Novel Object Exploration as a Potential Assay for Higher Order Repetitive Behaviors in Mice

Published on: August 20, 2016

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Computer Vision

Background:

Eye-tracking research extensively studies visual attention to image features and semantic content.
Understanding the temporal dynamics of visual attention, specifically the exploitation-exploration trade-off, remains less developed.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the balance between exploitation and exploration in human visual behavior.
To examine how stimulus properties, particularly image size, influence this trade-off.

Main Methods:

A free viewing task was employed to collect eye-tracking data from human participants.
Key gaze parameters analyzed included central tendency, entropy, saccadic amplitudes, number of fixations, and fixation durations.
Stimuli varied in properties and sizes to assess their impact on visual sampling strategies.

Main Results:

Central tendency and entropy of gaze patterns scaled with stimulus size.
Mean saccadic amplitudes increased linearly due to an interaction between saccade distribution and spatial bias.
Larger images resulted in more extensive spatial sampling (higher number of fixations) but shorter fixation durations.

Conclusions:

Visual attention exhibits a significant shift from exploitation to exploration as image size increases.
Gaze parameters adapt to stimulus size, demonstrating a flexible visual sampling strategy.