The Role of Fixation Position in Detecting Scene Changes Across Saccades

Abstract

Target objects presented within color images of naturalistic scenes were deleted or rotated during a saccade to or from the target object or to a control region of the scene. Despite instructions to memorize the details of the scenes and to monitor for object changes, viewers frequently failed to notice the changes. However, the failure to detect change was mediated by three other important factors: First, accuracy generally increased as the distance between the changing region and the fixation immediately before or after the change decreased. Second, changes were sometimes initially missed, but subsequently noticed when the changed region was later refixated. Third, when an object disappeared from a scene, detection of that disappearance was greatly improved when the deletion occurred during the saccade toward that object. These results suggest that fixation position and saccade direction play an important role in determining whether changes will be detected. It appears that more information can be retained across views than has been suggested by previous studies.