Walcher Sonja, Körner Christof, Benedek Mathias
Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Universitätsplatz 2, 8010 Graz, Austria.
Conscious Cogn. 2017 Aug;53:165-175. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2017.06.009. Epub 2017 Jul 6.
Humans have a highly developed visual system, yet we spend a high proportion of our time awake ignoring the visual world and attending to our own thoughts. The present study examined eye movement characteristics of goal-directed internally focused cognition. Deliberate internally focused cognition was induced by an idea generation task. A letter-by-letter reading task served as external task. Idea generation (vs. reading) was associated with more and longer blinks and fewer microsaccades indicating an attenuation of visual input. Idea generation was further associated with more and shorter fixations, more saccades and saccades with higher amplitudes as well as heightened stimulus-independent variation of eye vergence. The latter results suggest a coupling of eye behavior to internally generated information and associated cognitive processes, i.e. searching for ideas. Our results support eye behavior patterns as indicators of goal-directed internally focused cognition through mechanisms of attenuation of visual input and coupling of eye behavior to internally generated information.
人类拥有高度发达的视觉系统，但我们在清醒状态下却有很大一部分时间忽视视觉世界，专注于自己的想法。本研究考察了目标导向的内聚焦认知的眼动特征。通过一个创意生成任务诱发刻意的内聚焦认知。逐字母阅读任务作为外部任务。创意生成（与阅读相比）与更多、更长时间的眨眼以及更少的微扫视相关，这表明视觉输入减弱。创意生成还与更多、更短的注视、更多的扫视以及更大幅度的扫视以及眼聚散度更高的刺激无关变化相关。后一结果表明眼动行为与内部生成的信息及相关认知过程（即寻找创意）之间存在耦合。我们的结果通过视觉输入减弱机制以及眼动行为与内部生成信息的耦合，支持眼动行为模式作为目标导向的内聚焦认知的指标。
