Attention and communication: Eye-movement-based research paradigms

Recent technological development makes it possible to investigate the integration of attention, language and cognition in the processes of communication. Three studies approaching this problem are reported. The first study investigated the solving of puzzle tasks by two partners who shared the same visual environment but whose knowledge of the situation and whose ability to change it were different. One of them knew the solution but had no means to act on the situation. The other could act, but without knowing about the solution. In some trials, in addition to verbal communication, the eye fixations of one of the partners were projected into the visual space of the other. This gaze-position transfer improved the performance and changed communication processes. The second study analyzed the interaction between visual attention and the production of linguistic expressions. The instructor in this study had to advise the novice about the construction of a 3-D block structure. The data revealed a strong bi-directional interaction of these variables. In particular, an analogue of the "Eyevoice span" effect sensitive to the course of communication was discovered. In the last study distributions of fixations over ambiguous pictures were used for processing these pictures in such a way that in regions attracting less attention the brightness of elements was lowered. Then these pre-processed pictures were shown to naïve subjects for an identification. The results demonstrated a shift of reports in the direction of interpretation that accompanied eye movement data used for the pre-processing of pictures.