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11:00 - 12:30
Parallel sessions 8
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11:00 - 12:30
Room: HSZ - N1
Chair/s:
Philine Margarete Baumert, Celina Kullmann
Oculomotor research has a long tradition in experimental psychology. In humans, visual input provides the highest amount of information per time in comparison to other senses, and about 50% of the neocortex reacts to visual stimuli. With today’s technology, eye movements are easy to access, do not rely on participants’ subjective reports, and usually do not require complicated task instructions. Their neural basis, both neurochemical and neurophysiological, has been studied extensively. Therefore, they can provide insights into health and disease, numerous aspects of cognition, and can be viewed as an estimate of brain functioning. Despite the field’s long history, new methods and technologies open up new possibilities and questions, as well as new pathways to solving well-known problems. Here, we aim to present current methods, approaches, and directions in the field of oculomotor research in experimental psychology. First, Celina Kullmann will introduce the method of latent state-trait modelling and resulting reliability as well as trait and state components of smooth pursuit eye movements. Next, Paul Schmitthäuser will speak on how a new experimental paradigm makes use of saccadic inhibition to assess oculomotor planning and attentional priority. Keaton Dahl will contribute new insights into fixational eye movements and how specific statistical methods can be applied to them in face recognition tasks. Then, Philine Baumert will present findings on how lorazepam influences microsaccades during fixational and exploratory gaze behavior. As a final contribution, Alexander Goettker will shed light on the statistics of natural gaze behavior using mobile recordings and how they compare to laboratory-gained estimates. Overall, the symposium will demonstrate new perspectives as well as recent progress in exciting areas of oculomotor research, underscoring its continued relevance to the field of experimental psychology.
Submission 132
Latent State-Trait and Latent Growth Curve Modelling of Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements
SymposiumTalk-01
Presented by: Celina Kullmann
Celina Kullmann, Ulrich Ettinger, Kaja Faßbender
Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Germany
While previous studies indicate mostly good reliability of smooth pursuit eye movement (SPEM) performance, the relative amount of reliable trait and state influences on SPEM has not yet been quantified. However, this is of importance both for experimental and individual differences research. Here, we provide the first study to examine reliability by explicitly distinguishing trait and situational variance of SPEM in the context of latent-state trait (LST) theory. A total of N = 163 healthy participants completed SPEM with sinusoidal and triangular movement patterns at three measurement occasions. We used LST and latent growth curve (LGC) modelling to determine model-based reliability and to differentiate between trait variance (consistency) and variance due to influences of the situation and of the person × situation interaction (occasion specificity). SPEM performance was highly reliable with mostly excellent reliabilities (.86–.98), except for good reliabilities of the intra-individual standard deviation of root mean square error (RMSE) in both tasks (.70–.74). Consistencies showed that, on average, 62% of variance was due to trait influences, while situational influences were smaller (26% on average). There were mostly no trait changes in SPEM performance over time. We conclude that SPEM performance is highly reliable and characterized mainly by a relatively stable trait component, but also by substantial state influences. These findings provide further support of the use of SPEM in experimental and individual differences studies under consideration of potential state influences.