Recurrence quantification analysis of eye movements during mental imagery

Gurtner, Lilla M.; Bischof, Walter F.; Mast, Fred W.

doi:10.1167/19.1.17

Cited by 14 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(81 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, repeated scanpaths (instead of single re-fixations) have also been shown to aid the rehearsal (Tremblay et al, 2006) and retrieval (Bochynska & Laeng, 2015) of visual-spatial information. In terms of RQA measures, recurrence and determinism became larger with increased working memory load (Meghanathan et al, 2019) and during mental imagery (imagined scene must be reactivated repeatedly in the absence of the actual display; Gurtner et al, 2019). In sum, previous literature also points to increased scanpath repetitiveness during MW.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 75%

Refixation Patterns of Mind-wandering during Real-world Scene Perception

Zhang,

Anderson,

Miller

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent studies have shown that mind-wandering (MW) is associated with changes in eye movement parameters, but have not explored how MW affects the sequential pattern of eye movements involved in making sense of complex visual information. Eye movements naturally unfold over time and this process may reveal novel information about cognitive processing during MW. The current study used Recurrence Quantification Analysis (Anderson, Bischof, Laidlaw, Risko, & Kingstone, 2013) to describe the pattern of refixations (fixations directed to previously-inspected regions) during MW. Participants completed a real-world scene encoding task and responded to thought probes assessing intentional and unintentional MW. Both types of MW were associated with worse memory of the scenes. Importantly, RQA showed that scanpaths during unintentional MW were more repetitive than during on-task episodes, as indicated by a higher recurrence rate and more stereotypical fixation sequences. This increased repetitiveness suggests an adaptive response to processing failures through re-examining previous locations. Moreover, this increased repetitiveness contributed to fixations focusing on a smaller spatial scale of the stimuli. Finally, we were also able to validate several traditional measures: both intentional and unintentional MW were associated with fewer and longer fixations; Eye-blinking increased numerically during both types of MW but the difference was only significant for unintentional MW. Overall, the results advanced our understanding of how visual processing is affected during MW by highlighting the sequential aspect of eye movements.

show abstract

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 75%

Refixation Patterns of Mind-wandering during Real-world Scene Perception

Zhang,

Anderson,

Miller

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In fact, starting from the evidence that eye movements during visual imagery are related to what has been seen (Brandt and Stark, 1997), we showed that the nonlinear indexes of eye pattern significantly change according to the quality of the imagery performance and therefore this suggests that they contain information on the process of imagery. The higher REC and DET found in the BI group would likely reflect their bad working memory ability, which requires the recurrent fixation of the buttons on the screen to mentally reproduce the motor sequence (Gurtner et al, 2019). On the other hand, higher RQA parameters in the kinaesthetic modality than in the visual one can indicate facilitation for visual-motor imagery when visuospatial working memory is required.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…These findings have been assumed to reflect the visuospatial working memory processes by which mental images are generated and maintained in mind (Gurtner et al, 2019). Moreover, the large interindividual differences found in RQA measures during mental imagery has been related to the individual differences in working memory ability (Gurtner et al, 2019). Based on these previous studies, we have assumed that RQA could be used to find effective markers of motor imagery ability as well as of motor imagery modalities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Particularly, high percentage of recurrent fixations and determinism values have been reported during mental imagery. These findings have been assumed to reflect the visuospatial working memory processes by which mental images are generated and maintained in mind (Gurtner et al, 2019). Moreover, the large interindividual differences found in RQA measures during mental imagery has been related to the individual differences in working memory ability (Gurtner et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Nonlinear Analysis of Eye-Tracking Information for Motor Imagery Assessments

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigates the assessment of motor imagery (MI) ability in humans. Commonly, MI ability is measured through two methodologies: a self-administered questionnaire (MIQ-3) and the mental chronometry (MC), which measures the temporal discrepancy between the actual and the imagined motor tasks. However, both measures rely on subjects' self-assessment and do not use physiological measures. In this study, we propose a novel set of features extracted from the nonlinear dynamics of the eye gaze signal to discriminate between good and bad imagers. To this aim, we designed an experiment where twenty volunteers, categorized as good or bad imagers according to MC, performed three tasks: a motor task (MT), a visual Imagery task (VI), and a kinaesthetic Imagery task (KI). Throughout the experiment, the subjects' eye gaze was continuously monitored using an eye-tracking system. Eye gaze time series were analyzed through recurrence quantification analysis of the reconstructed phase space and compared between the two groups. Statistical results have shown how nonlinear eye behavior can express an inner dynamics of imagery mental process and may be used as a more objective and physiological-based measure of MI ability.

show abstract

“…Finally, compared to panel b, the recurrent fixations in panel c are closer to the major diagonal, meaning that refixations in panel c occur closer together in the fixation sequence. Therefore, the center of recurrence mass (CORM) is smaller in panel c than in panel b.From the recurrence plot, Anderson et al (2013) identified and described four recurrence measures which are briefly outlined here (also seeGurtner, Bischof, & Mast, 2019). First, the recurrence rate indicates the percentage of recurrent fixations for a given fixation sequence.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind-Wandering: What Can We Learn from Eye Movements?

Zhang¹

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mind-wandering (MW) is ubiquitous and is associated with reduced performance across a wide range of tasks. Recent studies have shown that MW can be related to changes in gaze parameters. In this dissertation, I explored the link between eye movements and MW in three different contexts that involve complex cognitive processing: visual search, scene perception, and reading comprehension. Study 1 examined how MW affects visual search performance, particularly the ability to suppress salient but irrelevant distractors during visual search. Study 2 used a scene encoding task to study how MW affects how eye movements change over time and their relationship with scene content. Study 3 examined how MW affects readers’ ability to detect semantic incongruities in the text and make necessary revisions of their understanding as they read jokes. All three studies showed that MW was associated with decreased task performance at the behavioral level (e.g., response time, recognition, and recall). Eye-tracking further showed that these behavioral costs can be traced to deficits in specific cognitive processes. The final chapter of this dissertation explored whether there are context-independent eye movement features of MW. MW manifests itself in different ways depending on task characteristics. In tasks that require extensive sampling of the stimuli (e.g., reading and scene viewing), MW was related to a global reduction in visual processing. But this was not the case for the search task, which involved speeded, simple visual processing. MW was instead related to increased looking time on the target after it was already located. MW affects the coupling between cognitive efforts and task demands, but the nature of this decoupling depends on the specific features of particular tasks.

show abstract

Recurrence quantification analysis of eye movements during mental imagery

Cited by 14 publications

References 42 publications

Refixation Patterns of Mind-wandering during Real-world Scene Perception

Refixation Patterns of Mind-wandering during Real-world Scene Perception

Nonlinear Analysis of Eye-Tracking Information for Motor Imagery Assessments

Mind-Wandering: What Can We Learn from Eye Movements?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About