The functional role of gaze scanpaths in long-term visual memory

Abstract

Eye movements occur spontaneously during recall from the visual memory despite neither the object nor context remembered may be visible at the time of recall. Recent research provides support for the hypothesis that these eye movements could play a functional role in the retrieval of stored information by matching the original eye fixations from the time of encoding. However, studies have provided conflicting results in this field. To investigate this, we designed a novel experimental procedure where the eye scanpaths from encoding were forced to be either enacted or not during recognition of the image. Simple geometrical patterns resembling checkerboards were used as stimuli in the current experiment. We hypothesized that enactment of the original scanpath would facilitate memory retrieval. Observed results supported the predictions, which is in accordance with theories pointing to a functional role of eye movements in long-term memory.