How does expertise influence the perception of representational and abstract paintings? We asked 20 experts on art history and 20 laypersons to explore and evaluate a series of paintings ranging in style from representational to abstract in five categories. We compared subjective esthetic judgments and emotional evaluations, gaze patterns, and electrodermal reactivity between the two groups of participants. The level of abstraction affected esthetic judgments and emotional valence ratings of the laypersons but had no effect on the opinions of the experts: the laypersons’ esthetic and emotional ratings were highest for representational paintings and lowest for abstract paintings, whereas the opinions of the experts were independent of the abstraction level. The gaze patterns of both groups changed as the level of abstraction increased: the number of fixations and the length of the scanpaths increased while the duration of the fixations decreased. The viewing strategies – reflected in the target, location, and path of the fixations – however indicated that experts and laypersons paid attention to different aspects of the paintings. The electrodermal reactivity did not vary according to the level of abstraction in either group but expertise was reflected in weaker responses, compared with laypersons, to information received about the paintings.

In natural conversation, the minimal gaps and overlaps of the turns at talk indicate an accurate regulation of the timings of the turn-taking system. Here we studied how the turn-taking affects the gaze of a non-involved viewer of a two-person conversation. The subjects were presented with a video of a conversation while their eye gaze was tracked with an infrared camera. As a control, the video was presented without sound and the sound with still image of the speakers. Turns at talk directed the gaze behaviour of the viewers; the gaze followed, rather than predicted, the speakership change around the turn transition. Both visual and auditory cues presented alone also induced gaze shifts towards the speaking person, although significantly less and later than when the cues of both modalities were available. These results show that the organization of turn-taking has a strong influence on the gaze patterns of even non-involved viewers of the conversation, and that visual and auditory cues are in part redundant in guiding the viewers’ gaze.

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Studies estimating eye movements have demonstrated that non-human primates have fixation patterns similar to humans at the first sight of a picture. In the current study, three sets of pictures containing monkeys, humans or both were presented to rhesus monkeys and humans. The eye movements on these pictures by the two species were recorded using a Tobii eye-tracking system. We found that monkeys paid more attention to the head and body in pictures containing monkeys, whereas both monkeys and humans paid more attention to the head in pictures containing humans. The humans always concentrated on the eyes and head in all the pictures, indicating the social role of facial cues in society. Although humans paid more attention to the hands than monkeys, both monkeys and humans were interested in the hands and what was being done with them in the pictures. This may suggest the importance and necessity of hands for survival. Finally, monkeys scored lower in eye-tracking when fixating on the pictures, as if they were less interested in looking at the screen than humans. The locations of fixation in monkeys may provide insight into the role of eye movements in an evolutionary context.

To take a step towards real-life-like experimental setups, we simultaneously recorded magnetoencephalographic (MEG) signals and subject's gaze direction during audiovisual speech perception. The stimuli were utterances of /apa/ dubbed onto two side-by-side female faces articulating /apa/ (congruent) and /aka/ (incongruent) in synchrony, repeated once every 3 s. Subjects (N = 10) were free to decide which face they viewed, and responses were averaged to two categories according to the gaze direction. The right-hemisphere 100-ms response to the onset of the second vowel (N100m’) was a fifth smaller to incongruent than congruent stimuli. The results demonstrate the feasibility of realistic viewing conditions with gaze-based averaging of MEG signals.

Haptic devices can bring a sense of touch to virtual interactions, with substantial benefits for communication and health. Mid-air ultrasound can generate acoustic radiation forces for tailored tactile sensations -'touch without touching'. To study the neuroscience of haptics, devices must be compatible with neural monitors. In this study, electromagnetic shielding with a Faraday was created. Our device creates a palpable focus of ultrasound with sufficient spatial resolution (5 mm diameter) and radiation pressure (1.56 or 1.76 Pa without or with Faraday cage lid, respectively) to stimulate small areas of skin. Magnetometer measurements showed minimal field strength variability around the system. Therefore, the proposed system could be compatible with neurological monitoring for neuroscience studies.

Collaboration between disciplines is necessary when research questions cannot be answered within a single discipline. Joining of forces can produce results that neither discipline could provide alone. Here we exemplify collaboration between a ceramic craft researcher and three neuroscientists working in the field of human brain imaging. In our case study of clay throwing, the researcher–practitioner’s eye gaze, muscular activity and hand acceleration were recorded online, synchronized with video and thermal-camera recordings. We describe the experimental setting and discuss, besides the possible future interests in this kind of research, also the different levels of collaborative work between disciplines. We found that the monitoring methods worked well in the naturalistic setting in a ceramic studio, providing some new perspectives into the craft practice. For neuroscientists, clay throwing – involving accurate sensorimotor hand control, haptics and eye–hand coordination – provides an attractive setup to extend previous neuroscientific and behavioural findings in strictly controlled laboratory experiments into naturalistic situations. The applied monitoring devices might allow practitioner–researchers in crafts to become aware of unconscious steps in the making process. The applied methods could also help to accumulate general craft-making knowledge and build related theory.