We asked participants to make simple risky choices while we recorded their eye movements. We built a complete statistical model of the eye movements and found very little systematic variation in eye movements over the time course of a choice or across the different choices. The only exceptions were finding more (of the same) eye movements when choice options were similar, and an emerging gaze bias in which people looked more at the gamble they ultimately chose. These findings are inconsistent with prospect theory, the priority heuristic, or decision field theory. However, the eye movements made during a choice have a large relationship with the final choice, and this is mostly independent from the contribution of the actual attribute values in the choice options. That is, eye movements tell us not just about the processing of attribute values but also are independently associated with choice. The pattern is simple—people choose the gamble they look at more often, independently of the actual numbers they see—and this pattern is simpler than predicted by decision field theory, decision by sampling, and the parallel constraint satisfaction model. © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The human brain analyzes a visual object first by basic feature detectors. On the objects way to a conscious percept, these features are integrated in subsequent stages of the visual hierarchy. The time course of this feature integration is largely unknown. To shed light on the temporal dynamics of feature integration, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to a feature fusion paradigm. In feature fusion, two stimuli which differ in one feature are presented in rapid succession such that they are not perceived individually but as one single stimulus only. The fused percept is an integration of the features of both stimuli. Here, we show that TMS can modulate this integration for a surprisingly long period of time, even though the individual stimuli themselves are not consciously perceived. Hence, our results reveal a long-lasting integration process of unconscious feature traces.

Visual backward masking is a versatile tool for understanding principles and limitations of visual information processing in the human brain. However, the mechanisms underlying masking are still poorly understood. In the current contribution, the authors show that a structurally simple mathematical model can explain many spatial and temporal effects in visual masking, such as spatial layout effects on pattern masking and B-type masking. Specifically, the authors show that lateral excitation and inhibition on different length scales, in combination with the typical time scales, are capable of producing a rich, dynamic behavior that explains this multitude of masking phenomena in a single, biophysically motivated model.

V. Di Lolo, J. T. Enns, and R. A. Rensink (2000) reported properties of masking that they claimed were inconsistent with all current models. The current authors show, through computer simulation, that many current models can account for V. Di Lollo et al.'s (2000) data. Although V. Di Lollo et al. (2000) argued that their data could be accounted for only with models that incorporate reentrant processing, the current authors show that reentrant processing is not necessary.

Choice experiments (CE), involving multi-attribute choices, are increasingly used in economics to value non-marketed goods. Such choices require individuals to process large amounts of information, shown to trigger partial information strategies in participants. We develop a new framework in which information processing is treated as a latent (unobservable) process. Testing our approach by combining CE and visual attention (VA) data gathered from eye-tracking, we show that treating information processing as a latent process (LIP) outperforms models assuming full information processing (FIP) or binary information processing (BIP). Our modelling of VA results in a number of key findings. We show that the relationship between VA and individuals' preferences depends on the type of product attribute. More specifically, preferences for "easier to process" attributes appear to be less influenced by changes in underlying level of VA than "harder to process" attributes. In turn this impacts on willingness-to-pay estimates, with the LIP model resulting in smaller values than those obtained with the FIP model. Our results have implications for CE designers. More time should be spent getting subjects to understand more complicated attributes of the CE. Our results are likely to extend beyond experimental choices (stated preferences) to actual choices (revealed preferences).

In three experiments, we investigated the structure of frontoparallel haptic space. In the first experiment, we asked blindfolded participants to rotate a matching bar so that it felt parallel to the reference bar; the bars could be at various positions in the frontoparallel plane. Large systematic errors were observed, in which orientations that were perceived to be parallel were not physically parallel. In two subsequent experiments, we investigated the origin of these errors. In Experiment 2, we asked participants to verbally report the orientation of haptically presented bars. In this task, participants made errors that were considerably smaller than those made in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, we asked participants to set bars in a verbally instructed orientation, and they also made errors significantly participants to set bars in a verbally instructed orientation, and they also made errors significantly smaller than those observed in Experiment 1. The data suggest that the errors in the matching task originate from the transfer of the reference orientation to the matching-bar position.

The origin of motion illusions in simple black and white patterns such those as used by Op artists has been at the center of a lively scientific debate, relating motion processing mechanisms to involuntary eye movements that generate characteristic motion patterns. To overcome the limitations of using subjective ratings as a measure of illusory effects, we developed a new method to quantify the strength of the illusion for synthetic 'riloids' that were inspired by Bridget Riley's 'Fall'. In a 2AFC paradigm, test stimuli were compared to a reference set of patterns that elicit illusory motion of variable strength. We found that pattern parameters influencing the distribution of local orientation in the riloids (the amplitude and the spatial period of the line undulation) systematically affect illusion strength, whereas other parameters, such as the spatial period of the lines themselves, the duration of the stimulus, or fixation conditions, have little effect. These behavioral data are compared in computer simulations to the predicted activity generated by motion detector networks for displacements of the riloids that reflect small eye movements. The match between predicted illusion strength and experimental data support an explanation of the motion illusion in terms of retinal image shifts.

Social cues presented at visual fixation have been shown to strongly influence an observer’s attention and response selection. Here we ask whether the same holds for cues (initially) presented away from fixation, as cues are commonly perceived in natural vision. In six experiments, we show that extrafoveally presented cues with a distinct outline, such as pointing hands, rotated heads, and arrow cues result in strong cueing of responses (either to the cue itself, or a cued object). In contrast, cues without a clear outline, such as gazing eyes and direction words exert much weaker effects on participants’ responses to a target cue. We also show that distraction effects on response times are relatively weak, but that strong interference effects can be obtained by measuring mouse trajectories. Eye tracking suggests that gaze cues are slower to respond to because their direction cannot easily be perceived in extrafoveal vision. Together, these data suggest that the strength of an extrafoveal cue is determined by the shape of the cue outline, rather than its biological relevance (i.e., whether the cue is provided by another human being), and that this shape effect is due to how easily the direction of a cue can be perceived in extrafoveal vision.