Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Research on episodic memory has established that spontaneous eye movements occur to spaces associated with retrieved information even if those spaces are blank at the time of retrieval. Although it has been claimed that such looks to “nothing” can function as facilitatory retrieval cues, there is currently no conclusive evidence for such an effect. In the present study, we addressed this fundamental issue using four direct eye manipulations in the retrieval phase of an episodic memory task: (a) free viewing on a blank screen, (b) maintaining central fixation, (c) looking inside a square congruent with the location of the to-be-recalled objects, and (d) looking inside a square incongruent with the location of the to-be-recalled objects. Our results provide novel evidence of an active and facilitatory role of gaze position during memory retrieval and demonstrate that memory for the spatial relationship between objects is more readily affected than memory for intrinsic object features.

Keywords

eye movements episodic memory memory visual memory visual attention

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Altmann

G. T. M.

(2004). Language-mediated eye movements in the absence of a visual world: The ‘blank screen paradigm.’ Cognition, 93, 79–87.

Brandt

S. A.

Stark

L. W.

(1997). Spontaneous eye movements during visual imagery reflect the content of the visual scene. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 27–38.

Danker

J. F.

Anderson

J. R.

(2010). The ghosts of brain states past: Remembering reactivates the brain regions engaged during encoding. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 87–102.

Farah

M. J.

Hammond

K. M.

Levine

D. N.

Calvanio

(1988). Visual and spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation. Cognitive Psychology, 20, 439–462.

Ferreira

Apel

Henderson

J. M.

(2008). Taking a new look at looking at nothing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 405–410.

Foulsham

Kingstone

(2013). Fixation-dependent memory for natural scenes: An experimental test of scanpath theory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142, 41–56.

Holm

Mäntylä

(2007). Memory for scenes: Refixations reflect retrieval. Memory & Cognition, 35, 1664–1674.

Johansson

Holsanova

Dewhurst

Holmqvist

(2012). Eye movements during scene recollection have a functional role, but they are not reinstatements of those produced during encoding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 1289–1314.

Johansson

Holsanova

Holmqvist

(2006). Pictures and spoken descriptions elicit similar eye movements during mental imagery, both in light and in complete darkness. Cognitive Science, 30, 1053–1079.

10.

Kent

Lamberts

(2008). The encoding-retrieval relationship: Retrieval as mental simulation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 92–98.

11.

Laeng

Teodorescu

D.-S.

(2002). Eye scanpaths during visual imagery reenact those of perception of the same visual scene. Cognitive Science, 26, 207–231.

12.

Mäntylä

Holm

(2006). Gaze control and recollective experience in face recognition. Visual Cognition, 14, 365–386.

13.

Marr

(1971). Simple memory: A theory for archicortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 262, 23–81.

14.

Martarelli

C. S.

Mast

F. W.

(2013). Eye movements during long-term pictorial recall. Psychological Research, 77, 303–309. doi:10.1007/s00426-012-0439-7

15.

Mast

F. W.

Kosslyn

S. M.

(2002). Eye movements during visual mental imagery. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 271–272.

16.

Milner

A. D.

Goodale

M. A.

(1995). The visual brain in action. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

17.

Morris

C. D.

Bransford

J. D.

Franks

J. J.

(1977). Levels of processing versus transfer appropriate processing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16, 519–533.

18.

Norman

K. A.

O’Reilly

R. C.

(2003). Modeling hippocampal and neocortical contributions to recognition memory: A complementary-learning-systems approach. Psychological Review, 110, 611–646.

19.

Nyberg

Habib

McIntosh

A. R.

Tulving

(2000). Reactivation of encoding-related brain activity during memory retrieval. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 97, 11120–11124.

20.

Pollatsek

Rayner

Henderson

J. M.

(1990). Role of spatial location in integration of pictorial information across saccades. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 199–210.

21.

Richardson

D. C.

Altmann

G. T. M.

Spivey

M. J.

Hoover

M. A.

(2009). Much ado about eye movements to nothing: A response to Ferreira et al.: Taking a new look at looking at nothing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13, 235–236.

22.

Richardson

D. C.

Spivey

M. J.

(2000). Representation, space and Hollywood Squares: Looking at things that aren’t there anymore. Cognition, 76, 269–295.

23.

Roediger

H. L.

III Guynn

M. J.

(1996). Retrieval processes. In Bjork

E. L.

Bjork

R. A.

(Eds.), Memory (pp. 197–236). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

24.

Rugg

M. D.

Johnson

J. D.

Park

Uncapher

M. R.

(2008). Encoding-retrieval overlap in human episodic memory: A functional neuroimaging perspective. Progress in Brain Research, 169, 339–352.

25.

Snodgrass

J. G.

Corwin

(1988). Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: Applications to dementia and amnesia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 117, 34–50.

26.

Spivey

Geng

(2001). Oculomotor mechanisms activated by imagery and memory: Eye movements to absent objects. Psychological Research, 65, 235–241.

27.

Sternberg

(1969). Memory-scanning: Mental processes revealed by reaction-time experiments. American Scientist, 57, 421–457.

28.

Tulving

(1983). Elements of episodic memory. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.

29.

Tulving

Thomson

D. M.

(1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373.

30.

Ungerleider

L. G.

Mishkin

(1982). Two cortical visual systems. In Ingle

D. J.

Goodale

M. A.

Mansfield

R. J. W.

(Eds.), Analysis of visual behavior (pp. 549–586). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

31.

Wheeler

M. E.

Petersen

S. E.

Buckner

R. L.

(2000). Memory’s echo: Vivid remembering reactivates sensory-specific cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 97, 11125–11129.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.44 MB

Look Here,Eye Movements Play a Functional Role in Memory Retrieval

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material