In collaboration with Mary Hayhoe at the Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, NY, USA, I conducted a study into what are called "look-ahead" fixations. Most fixations in natural behaviour are localised on objects that are specific to the task in hand. They are also temporally coupled with the actions we perform. However, Pelz & Canosa (2002) noted that individuals sometimes look ahead to objects about to be used in the near future (approx. 7secs). Importantly, they do not look back as often as they look-ahead. Look-ahead fixations have also been documented in Hayhoe et al., (2003) and in my PhD thesis, where I called them "non-action" looks.

Apart from the evidence that individuals look ahead to objects of future use (but rarely back), no other evidence existed about these fixations. We conducted an exploratory experiment to assess the function of such deployments of gaze. We speculated that they may facilitate the motor system in some way, and that they may also reflect some sort of task planning. We devised a naturalistic paradigm that encouraged subjects to reach to objects in the same spatial locations in a predetermined sequence. By constraining them to specific locations, we were able to study the frequency of looking ahead to specific objects across the course of a task. These findings have been recently submitted for publication and have yielded many new ideas for further experiments on prediction.

Please contact me if you are interested in discussing expectancy, eye movements, and research on everyday routines. I am happy to hear from anyone who is interested in this area. In the meantime, if you wish to see what they look-aheads look like, click on the button on the left called: Looking at look-aheads.


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