Eye Scanpath On Repeated Presentation Picture

Researchers haven't reached an agreement on the issue that the scanpaths are similar or not while the same picture is presented repeatedly. The theory of visual pattern perception holds that there is a stable scanpath as the repetition of the same picture, while the random theory doesn't agree it. An experiment was conducted with two factors within-subjects design to examine the scanpath while a picture was presented repeatedly. The factors are: picture types with levels of the learned and the unlearned, and the times of picture presented including the levels of the first, the second, and the third. Taking the advantage of eye movement technique and dynamic programming method, we analyzed the similarity of scanpaths and meanwhile proved the repetition priming effect from the eye movement data. The result showed that two types of processing were used while viewing a picture, the strategy-driven top-down processing and the stimulus-driven button-up processing. The strategy-driven processing takes place while pictures are presented first time. The scanpaths are similar no matter what type the pictures are. While the pictures are presented repeatedly, for the learned pictures, the strategy-driven processing still occurs to form stable scanpaths, however; for the unlearned pictures, viewers use stimulus-driven processing which therefore formed unstable scanpaths. Moreover, the repetition priming effects were found not only from the reaction time but also from the gaze duration, fixation frequency, average fixation duration and first saccade latency etc.