Are your eyes following your thoughts? Exploring individual differences in internal coupling.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Ophthalmology
• Psychology

Background:

• Eye movements often correlate with internal cognitive processes, but individual differences in this coupling are significant.
• Understanding the variability in eye-movement coupling is crucial for predicting cognitive states and exploring its functional role.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if eye-movement coupling compensates for cognitive resource limitations or arises as a byproduct of mental imagery.
• To examine the relationship between eye-movement coupling, working memory capacity, and mental imagery vividness.

Main Methods:

• Assessed eye-movement coupling during a visuospatial working memory task involving imagined movement.
• Correlated coupled saccade rates with working memory capacity (complex span tasks) and imagery skills (VVIQ, OSIVQ).

Main Results:

• Coupled saccade rates during internal tasks varied widely (0-90%).
• Lower working memory capacity and vividness of imagination showed some indication of benefiting from coupling, suggesting a potential compensatory role.
• Reduced coupling was observed when visual spatial references were removed, particularly in individuals with lower spatial working memory capacity.

Conclusions:

• Internal coupling appears partly functional and influenced by mental imagery quality, but a significant portion of individual differences remains unexplained.
• The findings challenge the idea of a purely strategic use of internal coupling and highlight the need for further research into eye movements during cognition.