PubMed Health⌕ Search
Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 10499004

Memory for relational information across eye movements.

L A Carlson-Radvansky
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Structural descriptions are hierarchical representations of a visual stimulus in terms of its parts and their relations. Previous research in which the retention of parts was examined has shown that structural descriptions can be used to represent information in transsaccadic memory. In three experiments, this idea was tested further by examining whether relational information is also maintained across saccades. Experiment 1, in which a same/different comparison task was used, showed that both part and relation information are retained across fixations in the same manner as within a fixation. Experiment 2 showed that such retention is impervious to instruction. Finally, Experiment 3, in which a new set of stimuli was used, demonstrated that both coordinate and categorical relations are maintained across saccades. The results indicate that structural descriptions can be used to represent information in transsaccadic memory in a manner similar to their use in visual short-term memory.

Explore related subjects

Fixation, OcularHumansMemory, Short-TermReaction TimeSaccadesVisual PerceptionJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tResearch Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

L A Carlson-Radvansky. 1999. Memory for relational information across eye movements.. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03206906

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed2006

Localization of visual targets during optokinetic eye movements.

We investigated localization of brief visual targets during reflexive eye movements (optokinetic nystagmus). Subjects mislocalized these targets in the direction of the slow eye movement. This error decreased shortly before a saccade and temporarily increased afterwards. The pattern of mislocalization differs markedly from mislocalization during voluntary eye movements in the presence of visual references, but (spatially) resembles mislocalization during voluntary eye movements in darkness. Because neither reflexive eye movements nor voluntary eye movements in darkness have explicit (visual) goals, these data support the view that visual goals support perceptual stability as an important link between pre- and post-saccadic scenes.

Fixation, Ocular↗
PubMed2006

Binocular coordination of the eyes during reading.

Saccadic eye movements and fixations are the behavioral means by which we visually sample text during reading. Human oculomotor control is governed by a complex neurophysiological system involving the brain stem, superior colliculus, and several cortical areas. A very widely held belief among researchers investigating primate vision is that the oculomotor system serves to orient the visual axes of both eyes to fixate the same target point in space. It is argued that such precise positioning of the eyes is necessary to place images on corresponding retinal locations, such that on each fixation a single, nondiplopic, visual representation is perceived. Vision works actively through a continual sampling process involving saccades and fixations. Here we report that during normal reading, the eyes do not always fixate the same letter within a word. We also demonstrate that saccadic targeting is yoked and based on a unified cyclopean percept of a whole word since it is unaffected if different word parts are delivered exclusively to each eye via a dichoptic presentation technique. These two findings together suggest that the visual signal from each eye is fused at a very early stage in the visual pathway, even when the fixation disparity is greater than one character (0.29 deg), and that saccade metrics for each eye are computed on the basis of that fused signal.

Fixation, Ocular↗