Commentary on Section 1 - Eye Movements and Visual Information Processing

Abstract

This chapter provides a commentary by John M. Findlay on the first section of the book that discusses relations between eye movements and visual information processing. From the Marrian viewpoint, eye movements have little role to play in visual perception because the visual process itself is held to have generated a rich mental representation. It is a very plausible further step to assume that some mental processes can operate to select a specific part of this representation. An obvious extension of the Marrian viewpoint is the idea of covert attention, particularly as it is readily demonstrated that attention can be directed without moving the eyes. In an information rich visual environment, selection is important—achieved by overt or covert attention. Overt attention is the attention achieved by redirecting the eyes in saccadic movements. Covert attention is also related to selection, but in this case, the selection is made by mental processes that do not involve moving the eyes. Although covert attention might operate in a great variety of ways, the one most emphasized is the ability to attend to a location in space other than the one to which the foveal axis is directed.