The saccadic eye movements that people make when thinking have been largely ignored in the eye-movement literature. Nevertheless, there is evidence that such eye movements are systematically related to internal thought processes. On average, people move their eyes about twice as often when searching through long-term memory as they do when engaged in tasks that do not require such search. This pattern occurs when people are in face-to-face situations, when they are in the dark, and when they have their eyes closed. Because these eye movements do not appear to serve visual processing, we refer to them as “nonvisual” eye movements and discuss why the eyes move during thinking that does not involve vision.
AndersonE. J.MannanS. K.ReesG.SumnerP.KennardC. (2010). Overlapping functional anatomy for working memory and visual search. Experimental Brain Research, 200, 91–107.
2.
ArgyleM.CookM. (1976). Gaze and mutual gaze. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
3.
BeattieG. W. (1981). A further investigation of the cognitive interference hypothesis of gaze patterns during conversation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 243–248.
4.
BergstromK. J.HiscockM. (1988). Factors influencing ocular motility during the performance of cognitive tasks. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 42, 1–23.
5.
ChristmanS. D.GarveyK. J.PropperR. E.PhaneufK. A. (2003). Bilateral eye movements enhance the retrieval of episodic memories. Neuropsychology, 17, 221–229.
6.
ConwayM. A. (2005). Memory and the self. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 594–628.
7.
Doherty-SneddonG.PhelpsF. G. (2005). Gaze aversion: A response to cognitive or social difficulty?Memory & Cognition, 33, 727–733.
8.
EhrlichmanH. (1981). From gaze aversion to eye movement suppression: An investigation of the cognitive interference explanation of gaze patterns during conversation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 233–241.
9.
EhrlichmanH.BarrettJ. (1983). “Random” saccadic eye movements during verbal-linguistic and visual-imaginal tasks. Acta Psychologica, 53, 9–26.
10.
EhrlichmanH.MicicD.SousaA.ZhuJ. (2007). Looking for answers: Eye movements in non-visual cognitive tasks. Brain and Cognition, 64, 7–20.
11.
EhrlichmanH.WeinbergerA. (1978). Lateral eye movements and hemispheric asymmetry: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1080–1101.
12.
GlenbergA. M.SchroederJ. L.RobertsonD. A. (1998). Averting the gaze disengages the environment and facilitates remembering. Memory & Cognition, 26, 651–658.
13.
GodijnR.TheeuwesJ. (2002). Programming of endogenous and exogenous saccades: Evidence for a competitive integration model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28, 1039–1054.
14.
HiscockM.BergstromK. J. (1981). Ocular motility as an indicator of verbal and visuospatial processing. Memory & Cognition, 9, 332–338.
15.
JonidesJ.LaceyS. C.NeeD. E. (2005). Processes of working memory in mind and brain. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 2–5.
16.
KinsbourneM. (1972). Eye and head turning indicates cerebral localization. Science, 176, 539–541.
17.
LeighR. J.KennardC. (2004). Using saccades as a research tool in clinical neurosciences. Brain, 127, 460–477.
18.
MicicD.EhrlichmanH.ChenR. (2010). Why do we move our eyes while trying to remember? The relationship between non-visual gaze patterns and memory. Brain and Cognition, 74, 210–224.
19.
SiegleG. J.IchikawaN.SteinhauerS. (2008). Blink before you think: Blinks occur prior to and following cognitive load indexed by pupillary responses. Psychophysiology, 45, 679–687.
20.
StrayerD. L.DrewsF. A. (2007). Cell-phone–induced driver distraction. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 128–131.
21.
TanakaM.KunimatsuJ. (2011). Contribution of the central thalamus to the generation of volitional saccades. European Journal of Neuroscience, 33, 2046–2057.
22.
TulvingE. (2005). Episodic memory and autonoesis: Uniquely human? In TerraceH. S.MetcalfeJ. (Eds.), The missing link in cognition: Origins of self-reflective consciousness (pp. 3–56). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
