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Oculomotor behavior during non-visual tasks: The role of visual saliency
Dekel Abeles1, Roy Amit2, Shlomit Yuval-Greenberg1,2
1School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Plos One
|June 23, 2018
Summary
Even when visual input is irrelevant, people still explore salient locations during non-visual tasks. This visual exploration is a strong drive, though it occurs at a slower rate than in visual tasks.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Gaze positioning typically maximizes visual saliency for efficient exploration.
- Non-visual tasks may render saliency maximization disadvantageous or disruptive.
- The role of visual saliency in non-visual task performance is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether visual saliency influences gaze positioning during non-visual tasks.
- To determine if gaze shifts away from salient locations in non-visual tasks.
- To test if saliency maximization is a persistent behavioral drive.
Main Methods:
- Monitoring participants' gaze positions during visual and non-visual tasks.
- Presenting participants with complex and simple images.
- Varying attentional demands by using easy and difficult non-visual tasks.
Main Results:
- Exploratory behavior, including fixation of salient locations, occurred in non-visual tasks.
- Spatial patterns of exploration resembled visual tasks but were attenuated.
- Non-visual tasks showed longer fixations and later first fixations than visual tasks.
Conclusions:
- Visual exploration persists even without explicit instructions in visually rich environments.
- Non-visual tasks involve dual-tasking: the instructed task plus uninstructed visual exploration.
- Exploration in non-visual tasks uses similar mechanisms to visual tasks but at a reduced rate.
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