Gaze control in episodic memory

Abstract: The role of gaze control in episodic recognition was investigated in two studies. In Study 1, participants encoded human faces inverted or upright, with or without eye movements (Experiment 1) and under sorting or rating tasks (Experiment 2) respectively. At test, participants indicated their recollective experience with R(emember) responses (explicit recollection) orK(now) responses (familiarity based recognition). Experiment 1 showed that face inversion and occlusion of eye movements reduced levels of explicit recollection as measured by R responses. In Experiment 2, the relation between recollective experience and perceptual reinstatement wasexamined. Whereas the study instructions produced no differences in terms of eye movements, R responses were associated with a higher proportion of refixations than K responses.In Study 2, perceptual consistency was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants studied scenes under different concurrent tasks. Subsequently, their recognition memory was examined in a R / K test. Executive load produced parallel effects on eye movements and R responses. Furthermore, R responses were associated with a higher proportion ofrefixations than K responses. However, number of fixations was correlated with refixations.Experiment 2 corroborated these results and controlled for number of fixations.Together, these studies suggest that visual episodic representations are supported by perceptual detail, and that explicit recollection is a function of encoding and retrieving those details. To this end, active gaze control is an important factor in visual recognition.