Gaze Restriction and Reactivation of Place-bound Content Drive Eye Movements During Mental Imagery

When we imagine a picture, we move our eyes even though the picture is physically not present. These eye movements provide information about the ongoing process of mental imagery. Eye movements unfold over time, and previous research has shown that the temporal gaze dynamics of eye movements in mental imagery have unique properties, which are unrelated to those in perception. In mental imagery, refixations of previously fixated locations happen more often and in a more systematic manner than in perception. The origin of these unique properties remains unclear. We tested how the temporal structure of eye movements is influenced by the complexity of the mental image. Participants briefly saw and then maintained a pattern stimulus, consisting of one (easy condition) to four black segments (most difficult condition). When maintaining a simple pattern in imagery, participants restricted their gaze to a narrow area, and for more complex stimuli, eye movements were more spread out to distant areas. At the same time, fewer refixations were made in imagery when the stimuli were complex. The results show that refixations depend on the imagined content. While fixations of stimulus-related areas reflect the so-called ‘looking at nothing’ effect, gaze restriction emphasizes differences between mental imagery and perception

The where, how, and who of mitigating climate change: A targeted research agenda for psychology

Psychology has been making targeted contributions to climate change research for at least a decade. However, its efforts to date have not produced the knowledge needed to bring about the transformational societal change required to mitigate climate change. In this article, we invert the current logic of applying psychological theories to mitigate climate change. Instead, we begin by identifying the social change strategies capable of mitigating climate change, such as social tipping dynamics, and then highlight the corresponding knowledge that psychology must create to support and accelerate these dynamics. We suggest that psychology can help to answer the question of “Where to?” – i.e. the direction we should head for sustainability – by identifying the feasibility of consumption corridors. Next, psychology can help to answer the question of “How do we get there?” by producing more knowledge about human capacity for change. Finally, psychology can help to answer the question of “Who will get us there?” by exploring the motivations of three key social groups: activists, experienced individuals, and the affluent. Individually, each area of research can accelerate societal change. Taken together, the different areas can reinforce each other and amplify their respective impacts. The goal of the research agenda is to accelerate positive societal tipping dynamics that could limit global warming to 1.5 °C

Eye movements during visual imagery and perception show spatial correspondence but have unique temporal signatures

Eye fixation patterns during mental imagery are similar to those during perception of the same picture, suggesting that oculomotor mechanisms play a role in mental imagery (i.e., the “looking at nothing” effect). Previous research has focused on the spatial similarities of eye movements during perception and mental imagery. The primary aim of this study was to assess whether the spatial similarity translates to the temporal domain. We used recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) to assess the temporal structure of eye fixations in visual perception and mental imagery and we compared the temporal as well as the spatial characteristics in mental imagery with perception by means of Bayesian hierarchical regression models. We further investigated how person and picture-specific characteristics contribute to eye movement behavior in mental imagery. Working memory capacity and mental imagery abilities were assessed to either predict gaze dynamics in visual imagery or to moderate a possible correspondence between spatial or temporal gaze dynamics in perception and mental imagery. We were able to show the spatial similarity of fixations between visual perception and imagery and we provide first evidence for its moderation by working memory capacity. Interestingly, the temporal gaze dynamics in mental imagery were unrelated to those in perception and their variance between participants was not explained by variance in visuo-spatial working memory capacity or vividness of mental images. The semantic content of the imagined pictures was the only meaningful predictor of temporal gaze dynamics. The spatial correspondence reflects shared spatial structure of mental images and perceived pictures, while the unique temporal gaze behavior could be driven by generation, maintenance and protection processes specific to visual imagery. The unique temporal gaze dynamics offer a window to new insights into the genuine process of mental imagery independent of its similarity to perception Previous article in issu

Recurrence quantification analysis of eye movements during mental imagery

Several studies demonstrated similarities of eye fixations during mental imagery and visual perception but—to our knowledge—the temporal characteristics of eye movements during imagery have not yet been considered in detail. To fill this gap, the same data is analyzed with conventional spatial techniques such as analysis of areas of interest (AOI), ScanMatch, and MultiMatch and with recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), a new way of analyzing gaze data by tracking re-fixations and their temporal dynamics. Participants viewed and afterwards imagined three different kinds of pictures (art, faces, and landscapes) while their eye movements were recorded. While fixation locations during imagery were related to those during perception, participants returned more often to areas they had previously looked at during imagery and their scan paths were more clustered and more repetitive when compared to visual perception. Furthermore, refixations of the same area occurred sooner after initial fixation during mental imagery. The results highlight not only content-driven spatial similarities between imagery and perception but also shed light on the processes of mental imagery maintenance and interindividual differences in these processes

School-age children show a bias toward fantasy classifications after playing a platform game

We investigated the influence of playing a video game on children’s ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. School-age children played a platform game for 15 min and then performed a fantasy/reality distinction task in which they were to judge whether images (from the platform game and from other games) were fantasy images or reality images. Unlike those in the control group (who played a memory game), the children in the experimental group showed a response bias toward mistakenly classifying reality images from the video game as fantasy images (as determined by means of an analysis based on signal detection theory). We conclude that playing the video game exerted a short-term influence on children’s ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality

Temporal patterns of eye movements reflect the complexity of a mental image

Eye movements during mental imagery show a distinctive spatial and temporal pattern. While it has been known for a long time that fixation locations during mental imagery resemble those during perception, we showed in a recent study (Gurtner et al., 2019) that the temporal dynamics of fixations differ between perception and mental imagery. Using recurrence quantification analysis, we found that eye fixations return more often and sooner to previously inspected areas during mental imagery than during perception. To further investigate this difference we analyzed the role of re-fixations for maintaining mental images. In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that systematic re-visits of a limited number of locations can counteract fading of the imagined content. In the first experiment, we manipulated the demands of maintenance by increasing the complexity of the pattern that needed to be maintained. In a second experiment, dynamic visual noise interfered with the mental image. The results contribute to a better understanding of eye movements during mental imagery by including the temporal dynamics of fixations in addition to spatial congruence. Gurtner, L. M., Bischof, W. F., & Mast, F. W. (2019). Recurrence quantification analysis of eye movements during mental imagery. Journal of Vision, 19(17), doi:10.1167/19.1.1