Accumulating visual information for action

In this chapter, we discuss the way in which visual information is gathered and try to relate this to the task at hand. It is well established that people direct their gaze toward the places at which they expect to be able to gather the most useful information. Studies of gaze during goal-directed actions show that people also make sure to gather information precisely at the moment that they need it. We argue that the eye movements that people make during interception tasks and the precision that people achieve in such tasks suggest that people constantly update their estimates of the details that are needed to successfully hit the target. The updating predominantly consists of replacing the previously acquired information, rather than of adding to such information.