Cognitive Processing During Saccadic Eye Movements

9615988欧文人们进行快速的眼球运动，称为扫视，以检查他们周围的世界。 扫视之间的静止期称为注视。 众所周知，视觉在扫视过程中受到抑制;因此，关于世界的视觉信息仅在注视过程中获得。 本研究将探讨扫视是否也会干扰特定的认知过程。 初步研究结果表明，这可能是真的，但证据并不令人信服;这项研究将提供一些步骤，以确定答案。 这些实验将检查在一只眼睛注视期间被设置为运动的认知过程是否在眼睛移动到空间中的新位置时继续运行，或者这些过程是否在眼睛运动期间暂停。 人们将被呈现一个简单的心理任务，当他们注视空间中的一个位置时，他们将开始执行该心理任务，然后当试图继续执行该任务时，他们将对空间中的不同位置进行短或长的扫视。 如果在眼球运动过程中认知处理受到抑制，那么长时间的扫视（需要更长的时间来执行）应该比短时间的扫视（需要更少的时间来执行）更能破坏性能。 表现也将在另一种情况下进行测量，在这种情况下，眼睛不动。 如果眼动不干扰认知，则眼动条件下的表现应等同于无眼动条件下的表现。 普通人每秒大约进行三次扫视（因此，每16小时工作日大约进行172，800次扫视），平均扫视持续约30 ms;因此，如果在扫视期间发生抑制，则意味着认知每天大约中断90分钟。 如果这真的发生了，那真是太了不起了。 因此，确定这种情况是否发生对于理解人类认知具有根本重要性，特别是对于需要许多眼球运动的活动，例如阅读和场景感知。 ***

9615988 IRWIN People make rapid eye movements called saccades in order to examine the world around them. The still periods between saccades are called fixations. It is well known that vision is suppressed during saccades; therefore, visual information about the world is acquired only during fixations. This research will investigate whether saccades also interfere with particular cognitive processes. Preliminary findings suggest that this may be true, but the evidence is not convincing; this research will provide some steps toward a definitive answer. The experiments will examine whether cognitive processes that are set into motion during one eye fixation continue to operate while the eyes are moving to a new position in space or whether these processes pause during the eye movement. People will be presented with a simple mental task that they will begin to perform while they are fixating one position in space and will then make either a short or a long saccade to a different position in space while attempting to continue performing the task. If cognitive processing is suppressed during eye movements, then long saccades (which take longer to execute) should disrupt performance more than short saccades (which take less time to execute). Performance will also be measured in another condition, in which the eyes do not move. Performance in the eye-movement conditions should be equivalent to performance in the no-eye-movement condition if eye movements do not interfere with cognition. The average person makes about three saccades per second (hence, about 172,800 saccades per 16-hour working day), and the average saccade lasts about 30 ms; thus, if suppression occurs during saccades, it would mean that cognition is disrupted for approximately ninety minutes each day. If this happens, it is truly remarkable. Thus, determining whether this occurs is of fundamental importance to the understanding of human cognition, particularly for activities such as reading and scene perception that require many eye movements. ***