title: Evidence for top-down control of eye movements during visual decision making.
abstract: Participants' eye movements were monitored while they viewed displays containing 6 exemplars from one of several categories of everyday items (belts, sunglasses, shirts, shoes), with a column of 3 items presented on the left and another column of 3 items presented on the right side of the display. Participants were either required to choose which of the two sets of 3 items was the most expensive (2-AFC) or which of the 6 items was the most expensive (6-AFC). Importantly, the stimulus display, and the relevant stimulus dimension, were held constant across conditions. Consistent with the hypothesis of top-down control of eye movements during visual decision making, we documented greater selectivity in the processing of stimulus information in the 6-AFC than the 2-AFC decision. In addition, strong spatial biases in looking behavior were demonstrated, but these biases were largely insensitive to the instructional manipulation, and did not substantially influence participants' choices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada. mackenzie.glaholt@gmail.com
authors.forename: Mackenzie G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Glaholt
authors.forename: Mei-Chun
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Eyal M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Reingold
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*