The effects of semantic consistency on eye movements during complex scene viewing

Abstract

Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed line-drawing pictures of natural scenes in preparation for a memory test (Experiment 1) or to find a target object (Experiment 2). Initial saccades in a scene were not controlled by semantic information in the visual periphery, although fixation densities and fixation durations were affected by semantic consistency. The results are compared with earlier eye-tracking studies, and a qualitative model of eye movement control in scene perception is discussed in which initial saccades in a scene are controlled by visual but not semantic analysis.