Saccadic eye movements in non-visual cognition: Data acquisition, relationship with memory, and sensitivity to physical presence of an interlocutor
Item
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Title
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Saccadic eye movements in non-visual cognition: Data acquisition, relationship with memory, and sensitivity to physical presence of an interlocutor
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:1e82024d76ca:10637
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identifier
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10911
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Creator
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Micic, Dragana,
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Contributor
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Howard Ehrlichman
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Date
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2010
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology | Cognitive psychology | Physiological psychology | Electrooculography | Eye movement rate | Long-term memory | Non-visual gaze patterns | Saccadic eye movements | Working memory
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Abstract
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This study was designed to collect evidence that a subset of the human saccadic eye movement repertoire may be intrinsic to internal cognitive processing and independent from social or perceptual aspects of ongoing cognitive activity. We refer to saccades that accompany processing of internal information as non-visual eye movements (NVEMs) and variations in saccadic activity during different cognitive tasks as non-visual gaze patterns (NVGPs). Because cognitive tasks are typically performed with eyes open, it is of paramount importance for the validity of NVGP research to establish that NVEMs are in fact non-visual. This was the primary goal of Experiment 1 in which data were collected with eyes closed and open using video recordings and electrooculography (EOG). EOG power which integrates frequency and amplitude of EMs was compared to eye-movement rate (EMR) obtained by counting visible EMs from a video record. NVGPs were found with eyes open and closed and EOG power was found to be highly correlated with EMR. Experiment also 1 tested the proposition that NVGPs reflect memory functions, specifically that search through LTM triggers EMs and maintenance of information in WM triggers fixation. While significant effects of LTM search were found both when eyes were open and closed, the effect of maintenance was inconclusive. A significant effect of LTM search was found using both verbal and non-verbal tasks. Experiment 2 examined the possibility that high EMR is elicited by search for information in LTM. Consistent with this idea, EMR was found to be significantly higher in free recall than in repetition and recognition. EMR was also examined in the presence of social factors. Presence or absence of the experimenter had no effect on the known pattern of NVEMs. In addition, significantly more EMs occurred in high than in low retrieval tasks even when participants were instructed to keep their gaze fixed on the experimenter. Although gaze fixation significantly reduced EMR, spontaneous saccades occurred more often in high than in low-retrieval tasks. Collected evidence strongly attests to the possibility that NVEMs are related to memory as suggested by ample indications of neuroanatomical linkage between oculomotor and memory systems.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
