UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

The categories, frequencies, and stability of idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns to faces

Arizpe, J; Walsh, V; Yovel, G; Baker, CI; (2017) The categories, frequencies, and stability of idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns to faces. Vision Research , 141 pp. 191-203. 10.1016/j.visres.2016.10.013. Green open access

[thumbnail of Article]
Preview
Text (Article)
Walsh_ArizpeWalshYovelBaker.pdf

Download (1MB) | Preview
[thumbnail of Supplementary Material]
Preview
Text (Supplementary Material)
Walsh_SupplementaryMaterials_ArizpeWalshYovelBaker.pdf

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

The spatial pattern of eye-movements to faces considered typical for neurologically healthy individuals is a roughly T-shaped distribution over the internal facial features with peak fixation density tending toward the left eye (observer's perspective). However, recent studies indicate that striking deviations from this classic pattern are common within the population and are highly stable over time. The classic pattern actually reflects the average of these various idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns across individuals. The natural categories and respective frequencies of different types of idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns have not been specifically investigated before, so here we analyzed the spatial patterns of eye-movements for 48 participants to estimate the frequency of different kinds of individual eye-movement patterns to faces in the normal healthy population. Four natural clusters were discovered such that approximately 25% of our participants' fixation density peaks clustered over the left eye region (observer's perspective), 23% over the right eye-region, 31% over the nasion/bridge region of the nose, and 20% over the region spanning the nose, philthrum, and upper lips. We did not find any relationship between particular idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns and recognition performance. Individuals' eye-movement patterns early in a trial were more stereotyped than later ones and idiosyncratic fixation patterns evolved with time into a trial. Finally, while face inversion strongly modulated eye-movement patterns, individual patterns did not become less distinct for inverted compared to upright faces. Group-averaged fixation patterns do not represent individual patterns well, so exploration of such individual patterns is of value for future studies of visual cognition.

Type: Article
Title: The categories, frequencies, and stability of idiosyncratic eye-movement patterns to faces
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2016.10.013
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2016.10.013
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Eye-movements, Face perception, Face recognition, Idiosyncratic, Individual differences, Pattern similarity measure
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1552610
Downloads since deposit
226Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item