Tom Foulsham

University of Essex · Department of Psychology

When free-viewing scenes, participants tend to preferentially fixate social elements (e.g., people). In the present study, we tested whether this bias would be disrupted by increasing the demands of a secondary dual-task: holding a set of (one or six) spatial locations in memory, presented either simultaneously or sequentially. Following a retentio...

Individuals high in autistic traits can have difficulty understanding verbal and non-verbal cues, and may display atypical gaze behaviour during social interactions. The aim of this study was to examine differences among neurotypical individuals with high and low levels of autistic traits with regard to their gaze behaviour and their ability to ass...

When free-viewing scenes, participants tend to preferentially fixate social elements (e.g. people). We investigated whether this bias is automatic by testing whether it would be disrupted by increasing the demands of a secondary dual-task: holding a set of (1 or 6) spatial locations in memory, presented either simultaneously or sequentially. Follow...

Autistic individuals often display social-communicative and emotional differences that can affect various aspects of daily living. Furthermore, autistic children are more likely to partake in sedentary activities than their neurotypical counterparts. Therefore, the present study assessed the feasibility and potential efficacy of a dance-based exerg...

Autism Spectrum Disorder is characterised by profound challenges with social communication and social interaction. Currently, there are few therapeutic interventions that successfully target some of the functionally impairing traits associated with autism. Furthermore, many of these interventions comprise a variety of limitations; including, limite...

Compositionality is a primary feature of language, but graphics can also create combinatorial meaning, like with items above faces (e.g., lightbulbs to mean inspiration). We posit that these “upfixes” (i.e., upwards affixes) involve a productive schema enabling both stored and novel face–upfix dyads. In two experiments, participants viewed either c...

We report two experiments investigating the effect of working memory (WM) load on selective attention. Experiment 1 was a modified version of Lavie et al. and confirmed that increasing memory load disrupted performance in the classic flanker task. Experiment 2 used the same manipulation of WM load to probe attention during the viewing of complex sc...

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterised as a neurodevelopmental disorder that has continuing deficits in communication skills and social development. Utilising techniques known as mirroring and rhythm, Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT) has shown beneficial effects in the autistic population reducing such deficits. However, no review to date...

We report two experiments investigating the effect of working memory (WM) load on selective attention. Experiment 1 was a modified version of Lavie et al. (2004) and confirmed that increasing memory load disrupted performance in the classic flanker task. Experiment 2 used the same manipulation of WM load to probe attention during the viewing of com...

In this paper, we present a review of how the various aspects of any study using an eye tracker (such as the instrument, methodology, environment, participant, etc.) affect the quality of the recorded eye-tracking data and the obtained eye-movement and gaze measures. We take this review to represent the empirical foundation for reporting guidelines...

The presence of other people, whether real or implied, can have a profound impact on our behaviour. However, it is argued that autistic individuals show decreased interest in social phenomena, which leads to an absence of these effects. In this study, the agency of a cue was manipulated such that the cue was either described as representing a compu...

People are drawn to social, animate things more than inanimate objects. Previous research has also shown gaze following in humans, a process that has been linked to theory of mind (ToM). In three experiments, we investigated whether animacy and ToM are involved when making judgements about the location of a cursor in a scene. In Experiment 1, parti...

In everyday group conversations, we must decide whom to pay attention to and when. This process of dynamic social attention is important for goals both perceptual and social. The present study investigated gaze during a conversation in a realistic group and in a controlled laboratory study where third-party observers watched videos of the same grou...

When people are given quantified information (e.g., ‘there is a 60% chance of rain’), the format of quantifiers (i.e., numerical: ‘a 60% chance’ vs. verbal: ‘it is likely’) might affect their decisions. Previous studies with indirect cues of judgements and decisions (e.g., response times, decision outcomes) give inconsistent findings that could sup...

Introduction: The coronavirus pandemic has swept across the United Kingdom (UK). Given the ever-evolving situation, little is known about the repercussions of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Therefore, this study explores the social-communicative impact of the first lockdown (Marc...

We report two experiments investigating the effect of working memory (WM) load on selective attention. Experiment 1 was a modified version of Lavie et al. (2004) and confirmed that increasing memory load disrupted performance in the classic flanker task. Experiment 2 used the same manipulation of WM load to probe attention during the viewing of com...

Recent debates in the literature discuss commonalities between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at multiple levels of putative causal networks. This debate requires systematic comparisons between these disorders that have been studied in isolation in the past, employing potential markers of each dis...

Recent trends in literature, along with the changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), make it imperative to study Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) together, in order to better understand potential aetiological commonalities between these highly comorbid disorders. The present study exa...

This topic of research moves the field of dance and movement therapy (DMT) into an area of clinical and social relevance by investigating the most beneficial features of rhythm and music for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current literature suggests that rhythm, used both inside and outside of DMT, can improve communica...

The current coronavirus pandemic has swept across the United Kingdom (UK), causing the devolved governments to implement nationwide lockdowns and local restrictions. Given the ever-evolving situation, little is known about the repercussions of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdowns for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Howev...

Visual narratives like comics and films often shift between showing full scenes and close, zoomed-in viewpoints. These zooms are similar to the “spotlight of attention” cast across a visual scene in perception. We here measured ERPs to visual narratives (comic strips) that used zoomed-in and full-scene panels either throughout the whole sequence co...

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterised as a neurodevelopmental disorder that has continuing deficits in communication skills and social development. Utilising techniques known as mirroring and rhythm, Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT) has shown beneficial effects in the autistic population reducing these deficits. However, no review to date...

This topic of research moves the field of dance and movement therapy (DMT) into an area of clinical and social relevance by investigating the most beneficial features of rhythm and music for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The current literature suggests that rhythm, used both inside and outside of DMT, can improve communica...

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are characterised by profound deficits in social communication and social interaction, and repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities. Currently, few therapeutic interventions successfully target some of the unwanted symptoms associated with autism; such as limited communication. New research suggest...

The comprehension of visual narratives requires paying attention to certain elements and integrating them across a sequence of images. To study this process, we developed a new approach that modified comic strips according to where observers looked while viewing each sequence. Across three self-paced experiments, we presented sequences of six panel...

When looking at an image, participants typically concentrate their fixations on a subset of locations that can be considered salient or important. A productive avenue of research has involved trying to explain how our eyes are guided to these locations. Here, I review research that investigates fixations in more interactive tasks, where participant...

Recent discussions in the literature, along with the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (American Psychiatric Association 2013), suggest aetiological commonalities between the highly comorbid Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Addressing this discussion requires studying these di...

When people are given quantified information (e.g., ‘there is a 60% chance of rain’), the format of quantifiers (i.e., numerical: ‘a 60% chance’ vs. verbal: ‘it is likely’) might affect their decisions. Previous studies with indirect cues of judgements and decisions (e.g., response times, decision outcomes) give inconsistent findings that could sup...

Research investigating gaze in natural scenes has identified a number of spatial biases in where people look, but it is unclear whether these are partly due to constrained testing environments (e.g., a participant with their head restrained and looking at a landscape image framed within a computer monitor). We examined the extent to which image sha...

The aim of this chapter is to review some of the key research investigating how people look at pictures. In particular, my goal is to provide theoretical background for those that are new to the field, while also explaining some of the relevant methods and analyses. I begin by introducing eye movements in the context of natural scene perception. As...

Recent discussions in the literature, along with the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) [2], suggest aetiological commonalities between the highly comorbid Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Addressing this discussion requires studying these disorders together by comparing constr...

Social attention describes how observers orient to social information and exhibit behaviors such as gaze following. These behaviors are examples of how attentional orienting may differ when in the presence of other people, although they have typically been studied without actual social presence. In the present study we ask whether orienting, as mea...

Digital and interactive media platforms, such as e-books, are becoming important tools in reading and education. In particular, picture e-books can embed multimedia effects such as sound, animation or personalized images, with potential benefits for learning and engagement. However, little is known about how such e-books are read, and most designs...

Purpose: The influence of interdependency between competitors on pacing decision-making and information-seeking behavior has been explored. This has been done by only altering instructions, and thereby action possibilities, while controlling environment (i.e. competitor behavior) and exercise task. Methods: Twelve participants performed a 4-km t...

A flickering light can be seen during a saccadic eye movement as a pattern of contours known as a phantom array. On repeated pairs of trials, observers made saccades across a narrow (1 arc minutes), bright (10−4 cd/m²) source of flickering light and were required to detect the phantom array. On one of each pair of trials, chosen at random, the ligh...

This study examines the viewing behavior of museum spectators during three eye-tracking experiments, the participants in which included wheelchair and non–chair users. The study pays particular attention to the spatial biases of spectators, such as the tendency to scan artworks from left to right or top to bottom. These spatial biases, the authors...

The eyes are preferentially attended over other facial features and recent evidence suggests this bias is difficult to suppress. To further examine the automatic and volitional nature of this bias for eye information, we used a novel prompting face recognition paradigm in 41 adults and measured the location of their first fixations, overall dwell t...

Background: Past research finds that treatment evaluations are more negative when risks are presented after benefits. This study investigates this order effect: manipulating tabular orientation and order of risk-benefit information, and examining information search order and gaze duration via eye-tracking. Design: 108 (Study 1) and 44 (Study 2)...

Humans are born to learn by understanding where adults look. This is likely to extend into the classroom, making teacher gaze an important topic for study. Expert teacher gaze has mainly been investigated in the laboratory, and has focused mostly on one cognitive process: teacher attentional (i.e., information-seeking) gaze. No known research has m...

More and more researchers are considering the omnibus eye movement sequence-the scanpath-in their studies of visual and cognitive processing (e.g. Ni et al., 2011; von & Vasishth, 2011; Hayes, Petrov, & Sederberg, 2011; Madsen, Larson, Loschky, & Rebello, 2012). However, it remains unclear how recent methods for comparing scanpaths perform in exper...

When observers view an image, their initial eye movements are not equally distributed but instead are often biased to the left of the picture. This pattern has been linked to pseudoneglect, the spatial bias to the left that is observed in line bisection and a range of other perceptual and attentional tasks. Pseudoneglect is often explained accordin...

Comparisons of adults on a visual search and free viewing task, in an individual lab set-up and a corresponding classroom like situation

Research has demonstrated that how “cute” an infant is perceived to be has consequences for caregiving. Infants with facial abnormalities receive lower ratings of cuteness, but relatively little is known about how different abnormalities and their location affect these aesthetic judgements. The objective of the current study was to compare the impa...

Ratings data from Experiments 1 and 2. (ZIP)

Introduction Pacing is widely recognized as an essential determinant for performance. However, the importance of in-race adaptations in response to what is happening around the exerciser has only been highlighted recently (Hettinga et al., 2017). This study examined how the interdependency between athlete and opponent, could affect exercise regulat...

Research investigating scene perception normally involves laboratory experiments using static images. Much has been learned about how observers look at pictures of the real world and the attentional mechanisms underlying this behaviour. However, the use of static, isolated pictures as a proxy for studying everyday attention in real environments has...

Purpose: To use eye-tracking technology to directly compare information acquisition behavior of experienced and novice cyclists during a self-paced 10 mile (16.1 km) time-trial. Method: Two groups of novice (N=10) and experienced cyclists (N=10) performed a 10-mile self-paced time-trial (TT) on two separate occasions during which a number of feedb...

The poster shows preliminary results on a complex Visual Search Paradigm

On Going Analysis on a Visual Search Task, proposed variables of Intra-subject Variability.

In the natural environment, visual selection is accomplished by a system of nested effectors, moving the head and body within space and the eyes within the visual field. However, it is not yet known if the principles of selection for these different effectors are the same or different. We used a novel gaze-contingent display in which an asymmetric...

Two supplementary figures are included, comprising example scanpaths, and a pictorial depiction of our head-contingent direction measure

Research has shown that people often reinterpret their experiences of others' harm and suffering to maintain the functional belief that people get what they deserve (e.g., by blaming the victim). Rather than focusing on such reactive responses to harm and suffering, across 7 studies we examined whether people selectively and proactively choose to b...

Research has shown that people often reinterpret their experiences of others' harm and suffering to maintain the functional belief that people get what they deserve (e.g., by blaming the victim). Rather than focusing on such reactive responses to harm and suffering, across 7 studies we examined whether people selectively and proactively choose to b...

Strabismus has a negative impact on patients’ lives regardless of their age. Factors such as self-esteem, relationships with others, education and the ability to find employment may all be negatively affected by strabismus. It is possible to correct strabismus in adulthood successfully; the chances of achieving good ocular alignment are high and th...

Evolutionary theory suggests that individuals in human groups accrue rank through either being respected (prestige) or feared (dominance). Previous empirical studies have supported the dual model of social hierarchy and suggest that prestige and dominance predict social rank in both experimental and naturalistic settings. However, such evidence has...

The study of attention in pictures is mostly limited to individual images. When we 'read' a visual narrative (e.g., a comic strip), the pictures have a coherent sequence, but it is not known how this affects attention. In two experiments, we eyetracked participants in order to investigate how disrupting the visual sequence of a comic strip would af...

Purpose In recent years there has been an increase in evidence for the functional and psychosocial benefits of correcting strabismus/heterotropia in adults. This study aimed to establish whether there has been an associated change in the frequency of strabismus surgery performed on adults in England since 2000. Methods Data on strabismus surgery p...

“Upfixes” are “visual morphemes” originating in comics where an element floats above a character’s head (ex. lightbulbs or gears). We posited that, similar to constructional lexical schemas in language, upfixes use an abstract schema stored in memory, which constrains upfixes to locations above the head and requires them to “agree” with their accom...

Eye tracking is now a common technique studying the moment-by-moment cognition of those processing visual information. Yet this technique has rarely been applied to different survey modes. Our paper uses an innovative method of real-world eye tracking to look at attention to sensitive questions and response scale points, in Web, face-to-face and pa...

Experiments performed in a lab are often considered generalizable over both people and social settings. The problems with generalizing over different groups of people are well known, but it is only recently that changes in behavior depending on the social setting have been examined. Large changes in behavior can be seen in trivial cognitive tasks,...

Cognitive scientists have long been interested in the role that eye gaze plays in social interactions. Previous research suggests that gaze acts as a signaling mechanism and can be used to control turn-taking behaviour. However, early research on this topic employed methods of analysis that aggregated gaze information across an entire trial (or tri...

Social attention is thought to require detecting the eyes of others and following their gaze. To be effective, observers must also be able to infer the person's thoughts and feelings about what he or she is looking at, but this has only rarely been investigated in laboratory studies. In this study, participants' eye movements were recorded while th...

Human saccades and fixations have numerous functions in complex everyday tasks, which have sometimes been neglected in simple experimental situations. In this review I describe some of the characteristics of eye movement behaviour during real-world interactions with objects, while walking in natural environments and while holding a conversation. Wh...

Eye-tracking is becoming a popular tool for understanding how different forms of asking questions influence respondents' answers. Galesic et al. 2008 have successfully shown how primacy effects can be detected through an eye-tracker that measures the time of an eye fixation at different points of a question or response scale. Until now this method...

We recently reported that people who wear an eye tracker modify their natural looking behaviour in a prosocial manner. This change in looking behaviour represents a potential concern for researchers who wish to use eye trackers to understand the functioning of human attention. On the other hand, it may offer a real boon to manufacturers and consume...

Background / Purpose: There has been significant recent interest in measuring neural and cognitive responses during dynamic scenes and video. The current studies aimed to establish whether convergence in fixation locations was associated with explicit self-reports of “important” moments. Main conclusion: Moments where everyone was looking in t...

Researchers have investigated visual search behavior for almost a century. During that time, few studies have examined the cognitive processes involved in hiding items rather than finding them. To investigate this, we developed a paradigm that allowed participants to indicate where they would hide (or find) an item that was to be found (or hidden)...