Future Directions for Eye Movement Research(6)
1. As with scene perception, we need to get a better handle on the perceptual span in visual search.
2. We need to know more about exactly what determines where the eyes move next and when they move in visual search.
3. An interesting question in the field of visual search is: Does search have a memory? Although many researchers have attempted to answer this question without eye movement data, it seems obvious that recording eye movements should quickly yield answers to this question. Indeed, Klein and MacInnes[37], Peterson, Kramer, Wang, Irwin, and McCarley[38], and McCarley, Wang, Kramer, Irwin, and Peterson[39] have reported eye movement data which show that there is memory during search(so viewers don＇t go back to previously inspected items all that much). But, more work is needed on this issue.
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4. Although there are many sophisticated models of visual search, most of them do not include eye movements. This lack needs to be remedied and complete models of visual search that involve eye movements are needed.
Other tasks
In the foregoing discussion, I have focused on reading, scene perception, and visual search because they are the most frequently studied domains. However, there are a number of other tasks which have been investigated via eye movement recordings. Perhaps the most popular recent area of investigation has involved recording eye movements in listening and speech production tasks. With respect to listening, it has been shown that people look at objects that are mentioned in the current speech stream[40,41]. So, if a person is listening to a story and the objects in the story are pictured in front of them, they tend to look immediately at a given object when it is mentioned. Likewise, in speech production, people look longer at objects that take longer to pronounce or which are less frequent[42]. Studies using this so-called "visual world paradigm"(in which the scene that is being described is presented in front of the viewer and eye movements are recorded)are currently extremely popular. Such studies have been aided by technological advances which make it possible to efficiently record eye movements without fixing the head. This type of research has clearly demonstrated that eye movements are tightly linked to what is available in the scene. However, the assumptions underlying the visual world paradigm haven＇t been examined as critically as some other areas.
, http://www.100md.com
In addition to listening and speech production, eye movements have been examined recently in a number of more dynamic tasks such as(1)looking at print advertisements,(2)driving,(3)action sequences(such as making a sandwich or shooting a basketball),(4)problem solving tasks,(5)looking at Web pages, and(6)virtual reality situations. The foregoing is not intended as an exhaustive list of eye movement applications and there are undoubtedly others that could be listed.
Eye movements will not prove to be informative in every situation. Earlier, I mentioned that many types of memory processes may not be relevant for using eye movement data[43]. But, for many tasks, particularly where knowing something about the temporal sequence of processing is important, eye movements should be quite valuable., http://www.100md.com(Ｋｅｉｔｈ Ｒａｙｎｅｒ)
2. We need to know more about exactly what determines where the eyes move next and when they move in visual search.
3. An interesting question in the field of visual search is: Does search have a memory? Although many researchers have attempted to answer this question without eye movement data, it seems obvious that recording eye movements should quickly yield answers to this question. Indeed, Klein and MacInnes[37], Peterson, Kramer, Wang, Irwin, and McCarley[38], and McCarley, Wang, Kramer, Irwin, and Peterson[39] have reported eye movement data which show that there is memory during search(so viewers don＇t go back to previously inspected items all that much). But, more work is needed on this issue.
, http://www.100md.com
4. Although there are many sophisticated models of visual search, most of them do not include eye movements. This lack needs to be remedied and complete models of visual search that involve eye movements are needed.
Other tasks
In the foregoing discussion, I have focused on reading, scene perception, and visual search because they are the most frequently studied domains. However, there are a number of other tasks which have been investigated via eye movement recordings. Perhaps the most popular recent area of investigation has involved recording eye movements in listening and speech production tasks. With respect to listening, it has been shown that people look at objects that are mentioned in the current speech stream[40,41]. So, if a person is listening to a story and the objects in the story are pictured in front of them, they tend to look immediately at a given object when it is mentioned. Likewise, in speech production, people look longer at objects that take longer to pronounce or which are less frequent[42]. Studies using this so-called "visual world paradigm"(in which the scene that is being described is presented in front of the viewer and eye movements are recorded)are currently extremely popular. Such studies have been aided by technological advances which make it possible to efficiently record eye movements without fixing the head. This type of research has clearly demonstrated that eye movements are tightly linked to what is available in the scene. However, the assumptions underlying the visual world paradigm haven＇t been examined as critically as some other areas.
, http://www.100md.com
In addition to listening and speech production, eye movements have been examined recently in a number of more dynamic tasks such as(1)looking at print advertisements,(2)driving,(3)action sequences(such as making a sandwich or shooting a basketball),(4)problem solving tasks,(5)looking at Web pages, and(6)virtual reality situations. The foregoing is not intended as an exhaustive list of eye movement applications and there are undoubtedly others that could be listed.
Eye movements will not prove to be informative in every situation. Earlier, I mentioned that many types of memory processes may not be relevant for using eye movement data[43]. But, for many tasks, particularly where knowing something about the temporal sequence of processing is important, eye movements should be quite valuable., http://www.100md.com(Ｋｅｉｔｈ Ｒａｙｎｅｒ)