Cite as:
Holm L, Engel S, Schrater P, 2011, "The functional field of view increases with object learning" Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 127
The functional field of view increases with object learning
L Holm, S Engel, P Schrater
A single glance at your crowded desk is enough to locate your favorite cup. But finding an unfamiliar object requires more searching. This superiority in search for familiar objects could have two possible sources: (1) familiarity with an object lead observers to move their eyes to more informative image locations, or (2) familiarity increases the amount of information observers extract from a single eye fixation. To test these possibilities, we had observers search for objects constructed from contour fragments in displays with random selections of contour fragments as background. Eight participants searched objects in 600 images while their eye movements were recorded in 3 daily sessions. Search improved as subjects gained familiarity with the objects: The number of fixations required to find an object decreased by 50% across the 3 sessions. An ideal observer model that measured contour fragment confusability was used to calculate the amount of information available at a single glance. Comparing subjects’ behavior to the model suggested that across sessions information extraction increased by an amount equal to a 44% increase in functional field of view. According to the model, subjects’ fixation locations were not more informative than randomly selected ones, and stayed that way across sessions.
These web-based abstracts are provided for ease of seaching and access, but certain aspects (such as as mathematics) may not appear in their optimum form. For the final published version of this abstract, please see
ECVP 2011 Abstract Supplement (complete) size: 2206 Kb
[Publisher's note: The abstracts in this year's ECVP supplement have been published with virtually no copy editing by Pion, thus the standards of grammar and style may not match those of regular Perception articles.]
