Event Title
The Relationship Between Visual Attention and Event Segmentation in Ongoing Perception
Presentation Type
Poster/Portfolio
Presenter Major(s)
Psychology
Mentor Information
Christopher Kurby
Department
Psychology
Location
Henry Hall Atrium 54
Start Date
10-4-2013 1:00 PM
End Date
10-4-2013 2:00 PM
Keywords
Social Science
Abstract
Event segmentation theory (EST) states that that people break continuous experiences down into discrete units or events. These events are perceived as a partonomic hierarchy with smaller events clustered by larger events. Event segmentation may be influenced by different information based on whether subjects are attending to the higher-level events (i.e., coarse) or lower-level events (i.e., fine). We measured eye movements and segmentation behavior to assess if visual attention changes, across viewings, with the grain at which people segment everyday activities. We found that although participants clearly segmented at different grain sizes effectively - they segmented more often for fine than coarse - their eye movements are highly similar. This suggests that a) eye movements during naturalistic viewing of activity is strongly stimulus driven and b) event models of different grain levels do not differentially control low-level visual attention, but rather the encoding of information.
The Relationship Between Visual Attention and Event Segmentation in Ongoing Perception
Henry Hall Atrium 54
Event segmentation theory (EST) states that that people break continuous experiences down into discrete units or events. These events are perceived as a partonomic hierarchy with smaller events clustered by larger events. Event segmentation may be influenced by different information based on whether subjects are attending to the higher-level events (i.e., coarse) or lower-level events (i.e., fine). We measured eye movements and segmentation behavior to assess if visual attention changes, across viewings, with the grain at which people segment everyday activities. We found that although participants clearly segmented at different grain sizes effectively - they segmented more often for fine than coarse - their eye movements are highly similar. This suggests that a) eye movements during naturalistic viewing of activity is strongly stimulus driven and b) event models of different grain levels do not differentially control low-level visual attention, but rather the encoding of information.