Information Integration Across Eye Movements

视觉世界包含的信息比我们一眼所能感知的还要多。为了补偿这种情况，我们通过眼睛和头部的运动来观察感兴趣的对象，然后我们逐渐从这些连续的观点中构建出对环境的心理表征。我们的眼睛通过被称为扫视的快速运动来扫描世界，这些运动被称为凝视的短暂时间间隔，在此期间眼睛处于静止状态。从逻辑上讲，人们可能会认为这种眼动活动模式会产生一种极具破坏性的视觉感知输入模式，即一系列静止的、清晰的世界图像，并在扫视过程中交替产生猛烈的信息扫视。当然，我们的知觉体验完全不符合这种交替的顺序。相反，它由清晰、连续、全景的大片视觉环境组成，物体在空间中保持稳定。视觉输入的性质和我们现象经验的性质之间的这种不匹配是知觉研究中的一个重大谜团，这个谜团在很大程度上仍未解开。这项研究项目将调查负责整合眼球运动信息的一个或多个记忆的特征，以产生我们通常经历的对视觉世界的连贯感知。特别是，研究将集中在这些记忆的容量、时间进程和表征形式上。人们将在监控眼球运动的同时观看视觉显示。当检测到眼球运动时，视觉显示将消失，并将评估观察者对该显示的记忆。例如，观察者可以指示第二显示是与第一显示相同还是不同，或者可以尝试报告在该显示中出现的某些特定信息。这些反应将揭示原始视图的哪些方面存储在记忆中，并在眼球运动期间保持不变。通过改变显示器中信息的数量和视觉特征，以及通过改变眼球运动后记忆测试的时间和性质，研究将揭示在眼球运动中保留了多少信息，这些信息在记忆中持续了多长时间，以及它的记忆表现有多详细。一个多世纪以来，随着眼睛位置的变化，对稳定和持续的视觉环境的感知一直困扰着科学家。这项研究将使我们在解决这一难题方面取得进展。此外，这项研究将提供有关空间表征和空间认知的重要信息，可能与阅读研究和有时伴随知觉不稳定的眼动障碍的研究有关。

The visual world contains more information than we can perceive in a single glance. To compensate for this state of affairs, we make eye and head movements to look at objects of interest, and we gradually construct a mental representation of the environment from these successive views. Our eyes scan the world by means of rapid movements, called saccades, that are separated by brief periods of time, called fixations, during which the eyes are still. One might logically expect this pattern of eye movement activity to produce a terribly disruptive pattern of visual input for perception, a sequence of stationary, clear images of the world, alternating with violent sweeps of information during the saccades. Our perceptual experience, of course, does not correspond to such an alternating sequence at all. Rather, it consists of clear, continuous, panoramic views of large sections of the visual environment, with objects remaining stable in space. This mismatch between the nature of the visual input and the nature of our phenomenal experience is one of the great mysteries in the study of perception, a mystery that is still largely unsolved. This research project will investigate the characteristics of the memory or memories responsible for integrating information across eye movements to yield the coherent perception of the visual world that we ordinarily experience. In particular, the research will focus on the capacity, time-course, and representational format of these memories. People will view visual displays while their eye movements are monitored. When an eye movement is detected, the visual display will disappear and the observer's memory for that display will be assessed. For example, the observer may indicate whether a second display is identical to or different from the first display, or may attempt to report some particular information that was present in the display. These responses will reveal what aspects of the original view are stored in memory and maintained across an eye movement. By varying the amount and the visual characteristics of the information in the display and by varying the timing and the nature of the memory test following the eye movement, the research will reveal how much information is retained across eye movements, how long it persists in memory, and how detailed is its memory representation. The perception of a stable and continuous visual environment across changes in eye position has puzzled and intrigued scientists for over a century. The research will allow us to make progress in solving this puzzle. In addition, the research will provide important information about spatial representation and spatial cognition in general, with possible relevance to the study of reading and to the study of oculomotor disorders that are sometimes accompanied by perceptual instability.