Conditional control in visual selection

Abstract

Attention and eye movements provide a window into the selective processing of visual information. Evidence suggests that selection is influenced by various factors and is not always under the strategic control of the observer. The aims of this tutorial review are to give a brief introduction to eye movements and attention and to outline the conditions that help determine control. Evidence suggests that the ability to establish control depends on the complexity of the display as well as the point in time at which selection occurs. Stimulusdriven selection is more probable in simple displays than in complex natural scenes, but it critically depends on the timing of the response: Salience determines selection only when responses are triggered quickly following display presentation, and plays no role in longer-latency responses. The time course of selection is also important for the relationship between attention and eye movements. Specifically, attention and eye movements appear to act independently when oculomotor selection is quick, whereas attentional processes are able to influence oculomotor control when saccades are triggered only later in time. This relationship may also be modulated by whether the eye movement is controlled in a voluntary or an involuntary manner. To conclude, we present evidence that shows that visual control is limited in flexibility and that the mechanisms of selection are constrained by context and time.The outcome of visual selection changes with the situational context, and knowing the constraints of control is necessary to understanding when and how visual selection is truly controlled by the observer.

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“…Adopting a cognitive psychology perspective, where learners visually attend is based on the size of the retina. The retina determines if and how much visual information is available for processing and discloses the learners' foci of attention and thus what information is being processed (van Zoest et al, 2017(van Zoest et al, , p. 1555. A number of studies provide empirical evidence supporting this perspective, such that where participants look is indicative of their reasoning behaviors such as scientific thinking (Plummer et al, 2017(Plummer et al, , p. 1426Miller Singley and Bunge, 2018, p. 445).…”