Abstracts of the 16th European Conference on Eye Movements 2011

The role played by film and video is enormous, as a source of narrative, a means of persuasion, and as simple entertainment. Movies offer clear advantages over static images as experimental surrogates for real world viewing conditions because they capture the dynamics of natural environments. They also have the advantage of allowing for the necessary degree of control demanded by psychological experimentation. Recent models of eye movement behaviour have been derived from video-based studies and show good explanatory abilities. However, stimulus changes occur in film (indeed, they are ubiquitous) that could never occur in the real world: an editorial cut can transport the viewer instantaneously to a new location in the scene. In this talk we review evidence from our lab and others about the oculomotor and memorial consequences of editorial cuts. Both eye movement behaviour and explicit object memory show that viewpoint changes selectively impair spatial understanding of the objects in the background of the movie. Editorial cuts therefore present specific challenges for our spatial understanding of scenes, which may not be present in natural settings. We discuss the implications of these findings with regard to the similarities and differences between movie perception and perception in natural settings.