Experience-guided Attention and Eye Movements: Coupled or Independent?

Abstract

Daily activities often occur in familiar environments; locations that were important in the past remain significant in the future, making it crucial for us to fine-tune attention based on learning. Indeed, researchers have demonstrated that people can acquire an implicit spatial preference for locations that frequently contained a search target in the past (location probability learning), resulting in both faster response and more frequent eye movements toward those locations. In this dissertation, I presented three empirical studies that investigated experience-guided attention and its relationship with eye movements. Study 1 showed that location probability-guided attention is independent of goal-driven oculomotor control. Study 2 used eye tracking to restrict the visible regions to a location opposite from the fixation, necessitating saccades away from the attended locations. Participants still acquired an attentional preference toward the high-probability region, suggesting that the spatial alignment between attention and eye gaze is unnecessary for location probability learning. Study 3 examined the role of peripheral vision to learning. I simulated peripheral vision loss using gaze-contingent eye tracking. Results showed that implicit location probability learning was impaired in the absence of peripheral vision. Together, this dissertation provides evidence that experience-guided attention is a high-level process independent of oculomotor movements and is implicitly supported by peripheral vision.