2,189
Views
104
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Top-down control of eye movements: Yarbus revisited

&
Pages 790-811 | Published online: 05 Aug 2009
 

Abstract

Alfred Yarbus (Citation1967) reported that an observer's eye movement record varied based on high-level task. He found that an observer's eye movement patterns during freeview were dramatically different than when given tasks such as “Remember the clothes worn by the people.” Although Yarbus’ work is often cited to demonstrate the task-dependence of eye movements, it is often misrepresented; Yarbus reported results for only one observer, but authors commonly refer to Yarbus’ “observers”. Additionally, his observer viewed the painting for 21 minutes with optical stalks attached to the sclera and with his head severely restricted. Although eye movements are undoubtedly influenced by high-level tasks, it is not clear how Yarbus’ results reflect his unique experimental conditions. Because of Yarbus’ role in the literature, it is important to determine the extent to which his results represent a sample of naïve observers under more natural conditions. We replicated Yarbus’ experiment using a head-free eyetracker with 17 naïve observers. The presentations were self-paced; viewing times were typically an order of magnitude shorter than the times Yarbus imposed. Eye movement patterns were clearly task dependent, but some of the differences were much less dramatic than those shown in Yarbus’ now-classic observations.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Jason Babcock and Constantin Rothkopf for their valuable contributions.

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 53.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 238.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.