Manipulating the depth of processing reveals the relevance of second eye fixations for recollection but not familiarity

Fixations durations on familiar items are longer due to attenuation of exploration

“…It was previously proposed that familiar faces are processed differently due to their memory representations, presumably duo to more holistic type of processing (Millen et al, 2020). A related explanation depict that the process of retrieval from memory delays the next saccade and therefore the durations of the xation become longer (Schwedes et al, 2020 (Millen & Hancock, 2019). These two hypotheses yield similar predictions in the current study, and are therefore joined together.…”

“…Consistent with previous studies, when participants looked on familiar faces presented alone their second xations were longer (Hsiao & Cottrell, 2008), but not when other unfamiliar faces were displayed simultaneously. It may indeed be the case that during retrieval, the second xation duration on single displays re ect a recollection processes, and\or holistic perception, as suggested previously (Schwedes et al, 2020, Millen et al, 2020. However, the lack of a difference in xation duration when unfamiliar faces were displayed together with the familiar face, suggests that the differences in durations are dependent not only on familiarity, but also on the need and opportunity to explore, shaped by the availability of other stimuli in the display.…”

“…We believe that this confusion is due to the relatively long task, which lasted about an hour and included 128 trials of short-term memory queries. Future research can address this issue by employing a longer familiarization phase, a deeper encoding method (Schwedes et al, 2020;Sporer, 1991), or a between-subject design that will allow showing only one condition, either multiple-rst or single-rst, thus shortening in half the experiment duration. In any case, the effects reported here are robust and can be seen even when the analyses include all faces without exclusion (see Figures s7-s9).…”

The spatial distribution of attention predicts familiarity strength during encoding and retrieval.

“…Prior work has indicated that limiting eye movements during retrieval can significantly reduce recollection-based memory responses (Mantyla & Holm, 2006;Schwedes, Scherer, & Wentura, 2019;), suggesting that the presently observed eye movements may have been involved in facilitating recollection; however, we cannot rule out the possibility that they may have reflected additional post-retrieval processes as well. Similarly, the eye movement effects related to familiarity could also reflect pre-retrieval and/or post-retrieval processes.…”

“…For example, the eye movements observed during the retrieval phase could reflect either processes facilitating memory retrieval (e.g., resampling studied regions in a scene may increase study-test similarity and so may facilitate retrieval; Wynn et al, 2016), or they could reflect decision processes that occur after the memory is retrieved (e.g., increased resampling of studied regions could reflect evaluation of the strength or the quality of the specific details that were retrieved from memory; Holm & Mäntylä, 2007). Prior work has indicated that limiting eye movements during retrieval can significantly reduce recollection-based memory responses (Mantyla & Holm, 2006;Schwedes, Scherer, & Wentura, 2019; This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.…”