Adapting the Coordination of Eyes and Head to Differences in Task and Environment During Fully-mobile Visual Exploration

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2021 Aug 20

PMID 34415981

Citations 11

Authors

John M Franchak

Brianna McGee

Gabrielle Blanch

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

How are eyes and head adapted to meet the demands of visual exploration in different tasks and environments? In two studies, we measured the horizontal movements of the eyes (using mobile eye tracking in Studies 1 and 2) and the head (using inertial sensors in Study 2) while participants completed a walking task and a search and retrieval task in a large, outdoor environment. We found that the spread of visual exploration was greater while searching compared with walking, and this was primarily driven by increased movement of the head as opposed to the eyes. The contributions of the head to gaze shifts of different eccentricities was greater when searching compared to when walking. Findings are discussed with respect to understanding visual exploration as a motor action with multiple degrees of freedom.

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