Human Eye Movements After Viewpoint Shifts in Edited Dynamic Scenes are Under Cognitive Control

We tested whether viewers have cognitive control over their eye movements after cuts in videos of real-world scenes. In the critical conditions, scene cuts constituted panoramic view shifts: Half of the view following a cut matched the view on the same scene before the cut. We manipulated the viewing task between two groups of participants. The main experimental group judged whether the scene following a cut was a continuation of the scene before the cut. Results showed that following view shifts, fixations were determined by the task from 250 ms until 1.5 s: Participants made more and earlier fixations on scene regions that matched across cuts, compared to nonmatching scene regions. This was evident in comparison to a control group of participants that performed a task that did not require judging scene continuity across cuts, and did not show the preference for matching scene regions. Our results illustrate that viewing intentions can have robust and consistent effects on gaze behavior in dynamic scenes, immediately after cuts.