I investigated the effects of probability on visual search. Previous work has shown that people can utilize spatial and sequential probability information to improve their performance on visual attention tasks. My task was a simple visual search in which the target was always present among a field of distractors, and could take one of two colors. The absolute probability of the target being either color was 0.5; however, the conditional probability – the likelihood of a particular color given a particular cue combination – varied from 0.1 to 0.9. I found that participants searched more efficiently for high conditional probability targets and less efficiently for low conditional probability targets. This modulation of efficiency was reduced or abolished when participants were not explicitly informed of the cue-target relationships. After establishing this effect, I investigated its mechanism using eye tracking methods. Early in trials, participants fixated preferentially, but not exclusively, on areas of the screen which contained predominantly stimuli of the color to which they had been cued. As the trial progressed, this color bias shifted to the target color. I conclude that search efficiency is modulated by the conditional probability of target features and that this is a top-down process that benefits from explicit knowledge of the probabilistic relationship between cues and targets, and that the modulation is a result of more efficient eye movements towards stimuli with a greater probability of being the target of search.

The accurate integration of audio-visual emotion cues is critical for social interactions and requires efficient processing of facial cues. Gaze behavior of typically developing young adults was measured via eye-tracking during the perception of dynamic audio-visual emotion (DAVE) stimuli. Participants were able to identify basic emotions (angry, fearful, happy, neutral) and determine the congruence of facial expression and prosody. Perception of incongruent videos resulted in increased reaction times and emotion identification consistent with the facial expression. Participants consistently demonstrated a featural processing approach across all tasks, with a significant preference for the eyes. Evidence of hemispheric lateralization was indicated by preferential fixation to the left (happy, angry) or right eye (fearful). Fixation patterns differed according to the facially expressed emotion, with the pattern that emerged during fearful movies supporting the significance of automatic threat processing. Finally, fixation pattern during the perception of incongruent movies varied according to task instructions.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att se hur vida digitala skärmar är ett effektivt promotionverktyg, och hur konsumenternas beteende är relaterade till denna typ av in-store promotion. Genom en explorativ studie som genomfördes på Ica Maxi Karlstad undersöktes detta fenomen med hjälp av ögonspårning och enkäter. Med denna metod kunde författarna jämföra faktorer som rör köpvanor med hur stor uppmärksamhet som riktas mot in-store elementen i en matbutik. Viktiga slutsatser pekar på att de digitala skärmar som undersökts inte bidrar med tillräckligt relevant information för att uppmärksammas av konsumenter. Resultatet visar också att digitala skärmar är något som uppmärksammas i liten skala av uppgiftsorienterade personer. Det visade sig att andra mer traditionella in-store element, som vanliga gula prisskyltar, drog mer uppmärksamhet till sig. Resultaten öppnar också upp för fortsatta studier och forskning inom området. / The purpose of this essay is to see whether digital screens are effective as promotional tools, and how consumer behavior is related to this type of in-store promotion. Through an exploratory study conducted at Ica Maxi Karlstad the phenomena was investigated by using eye-tracking and surveys. By using this method the authors could compare the factors related to shopping habits with the amount of attention given to in-store elements in a grocery store. Key findings indicate that the digital screens that were examined do not communicate enough relevant information, to gain the attention from the consumers. The results show that digital screens are something that task-oriented people pays a little attention to. It turned out that other more traditional in-store elements, such as ordinary yellow price-signs, gained more attention. Furthermore, the result opens up for further studies and research within this area.

Due to rising number of products on the shelves of stores and the fact that about 70% of buying decisions are made at the point-of-purchase, retailers and marketers are growingly investing on in-store advertising material to grab their customers’ attention. Thus, measuring the effectiveness of the in-store material in catching consumers’ attention would be highly of interest of marketers. In this study we have investigated the priming effect of in-store print advertisement on the visual attention of consumers. An experiment was conducted in a Swedish retail store where using eye-tracking technology, the visual behavior of two groups of participants who had been exposed to in-store product signs was captured. The results of this study shows that participants who had looked at a product sign, noted (fixated at least once) that product on the shelf earlier while the number of fixations on the target products was not directly influenced. An implication for managers is that they can use in-store product signs to manipulate the visual attention of consumers in a way that designated brands are attended earlier.

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how students distribute their attention while reading academic journal articles under time pressure. Given that most of the reading done in university is commonly time-sensitive and task-dependent, this dissertation explores how students actually shift their attention across the discrete sections of a journal article in the available time to identify and extract task-relevant information. Addressing gaps in the literature, the experiments in this dissertation observe the impact of the following three factors on strategic shifts in attention during study: (1) varied time conditions; (2) the presence/absence of summary information; and (3) the experience of the reader in terms of education level. The experimental methods used in this series of studies are consistent across all three chapters. Participants are given two 5-page academic journal articles to read on cognitive psychology for an impending test. Participants’ eye movement data are analyzed for the total adjusted viewing time the eyes spend in each section of the article, i.e., viewing time in each section was divided by the number of words in each section. The experiments in Chapter 2 examine overt attention when studying with and without a time constraint. Participants were given either 2 minutes of study time or unlimited study time. Analyses of the eye movement data reveal a reduced reading effect both when study time is restricted and unlimited. Specifically, the results showed that as time progresses, participants tend to read less and skim more, with the largest amount of adjusted time being spent on the Abstract. Chapter 3 examines further the apparent importance of the Abstract when reading under time constraint. It investigates whether people allocate more attention to the Abstract relative to other sections of the journal article based on its position or its summary content. Also, Chapter 3 explores whether the presence of an Abstract impacts what people read next in the article. Participants are given a limited time in which to read one of two versions of the articles to read, one version with an Abstract, the other without. The findings show that position, rather than summary content, seems to explain the amount of adjusted viewing time on the Abstract. Additionally, the summary information contained in an Abstract impacts what people read next in the article. Chapter 4 examines the extent to which participants’ education level impacts their use of a skimming strategy for studying. Here, participants form three different groups based on their year of study: graduates, senior undergraduates (3rd and 4th year), and junior undergraduates (1st and 2nd year). Overall, the results suggest that, when studying journal articles under time pressure, skimming behaviour changes from a primarily linear-skimming strategy (reading from beginning to end) to a more targeted-skimming strategy with increased education level. Finally, in the General Discussion in Chapter 5, a summary of the findings of this dissertation is considered in light of the literature on complex factors that impact attention and information-gain. The chapter also outlines hypotheses for future testing of overt attention while reading journal articles under time pressure.

Background: Cross-sectional and experimental research has shown that female smokers more frequently report using cigarettes to control negative affect, manage dietary restraint, and suppress body image dissatisfaction. However, there has been little research to identify cognitive mechanisms that may underlie these effects. Cross-stimulus attentional bias is one such mechanism. Aims and Hypotheses: We hypothesized that, when compared to neutral stimuli, in-vivo appetitive stimuli would enhance motivation to obtain a particular substance. More specifically, in-vivo smoking stimuli would increase attentional bias to smoking-related pictorial cues, whereas in-vivo food stimuli would increase attention to smoking-related and food-related pictorial cues. We also hypothesized that environmental tobacco smoke exposure history, negative affect, dietary restraint, body image dissatisfaction, and perceived appetite suppression of smoking would influence these attentional biases, such that higher levels of these characteristics would produce greater attentional biases. Method: Thirty-five female smokers were exposed to visual stimuli containing two independent pictorial cues: smoking/neutral, smoking/food, neutral/food, or neutral/neutral. Twenty images were presented in 3 counter-balanced, within-subjects sets differentiated by smoking (cigarette pack), food (snack) and neutral (jewelry) in-vivo stimuli. Attentional bias was measured using eye-tracking technology. Dietary restraint, body image dissatisfaction, negative affect, and environmental tobacco smoke exposure were assessed with self-report measures before the manipulations. Results: Effects counter to the hypotheses were observed, as in-vivo cigarettes and snack foods did not cause participants to differentially attend to pictorial smoking or food stimuli. Initial and maintained attention to smoking pictorial cues was greater than attention to food and neutral cues only when participants were administered a non-appetitive in-vivo stimulus. None of the theoretically hypothesized personality characteristics served as predictors or moderators of attentional bias. Discussion: Findings with the neutral in-vivo stimulus replicate and extend previous research identifying attentional bias for smoking cues among smokers. Results also enhance understanding of how attentional bias may change when smokers encounter other types of appetitive stimuli. These findings encourage further theoretical and clinical exploration of how the relationship between motivation and attentional bias can be conceptualized and translated from the laboratory to the natural environment.

At its most essential drawing consists of the making of marks on a surface, however such an interpretation does not necessarily reflect the diverse practice of artists whose work seeks to challenge the conventions of drawing and establish new boundaries. This abstract documents a practice involving a new consideration for drawing which focuses on the active process of drawing as a physical and perceptual encounter. It proposes that eye movements and their associated cognitive processing can be considered as a drawing generating process. It does not seek to undermine the conventional three-way process of drawing involving eye, hand and brain but presents ideas which push against the established boundaries for drawing practice and has investigated new ways of making and new ways of considering the practice of drawing as a phenomenological contemplation. The proposition for drawing presented in this document, has been developed through a practice-led enquiry over the last eight years and involves using scientific methodologies found within the area of Active Vision. By examining artworks produced within the early part of the period of time defined within this thesis, emergent ideas relating to the act of making in-situ drawings and the recollection of such experiences brought about a series of questions regarding the process of generating a drawing. As the practice developed, using data obtained from different eye-tracking experiments, the author has explored the possibilities for drawing through using scientific methods of tracking the act of looking to investigate the relationship between the observer and the observer entity. Using the relationship between the drawn mark and visual responses to it as the basis for a practice-led period of research, this thesis presents the notion that by using technologies designed for other disciplines artists can explore the potential for drawing beyond the conventions cited above. Through the use of eye-tracking data the artist and author seeks to firmly establish the use of this scientific methodology within an artistic framework. It is a framework that responds to new ways of thinking about spatiality and the relations between sight and thought, taking into account the value of experience within the production of art; how the physical act itself becomes the manifestation of a process of drawing, understanding and knowledge of the world around us.

The concept driver distraction is diffuse and no clear definition exists, which causes troubles when it comes to driver attention monitoring. This thesis takes an approach where eyetracking data from experienced drivers along with radar data has been used and analysed in an attempt to set up adaptive rules of how and how often the driver needs to attend to different objects in its surroundings, which circumvents the issue of not having a clear definition of driver distraction. In order to do this, a target tracking algorithm has been implemented that refines the output from the radar, subsequently used together with the eye-tracking data to in a statistical manner, in the long term, try to answer the question for how long is the driver allowed to look away in different driving scenarios? The thesis presents a proof of concept of this approach, and the results look promising.

Research suggests that, during stress, resilient individuals use positive emotion regulation strategies and experience a greater number of positive emotions than those who are less resilient. Therefore, differences could be expected in attentional biases towards emotional stimuli based on resilience. The current study investigated attentional biases towards neutral, negative and positive images in response to varying levels of resilence and mood induction conditions (neutral, negative and positive). Sixty participants viewed a series of pre and post-mood induction slides in order to measure attentional biases to emotional stimuli. The study provided evidence for the presence of trait and state congruent attentional biases. More resilient individuals demonstrated an initial bias towards positive stimuli and once emotion was aroused, the bias was away from negative stimuli. Additionally, mood congruent attentional biases were observed for participants induced into positive and negative mood states. Implications as they apply to research and clinical practice are discussed.

I investigated the effects of probability on visual search. Previous work has shown that people can utilize spatial and sequential probability information to improve their performance on visual attention tasks. My task was a simple visual search in which the target was always present among a field of distractors, and could take one of two colors. The absolute probability of the target being either color was 0.5; however, the conditional probability – the likelihood of a particular color given a particular cue combination – varied from 0.1 to 0.9. I found that participants searched more efficiently for high conditional probability targets and less efficiently for low conditional probability targets. This modulation of efficiency was reduced or abolished when participants were not explicitly informed of the cue-target relationships. After establishing this effect, I investigated its mechanism using eye tracking methods. Early in trials, participants fixated preferentially, but not exclusively, on areas of the screen which contained predominantly stimuli of the color to which they had been cued. As the trial progressed, this color bias shifted to the target color. I conclude that search efficiency is modulated by the conditional probability of target features and that this is a top-down process that benefits from explicit knowledge of the probabilistic relationship between cues and targets, and that the modulation is a result of more efficient eye movements towards stimuli with a greater probability of being the target of search.