Gaze patterns during visual mental imagery reflect part-based generation
PMC12876999
· 10.1038/s41598-026-35447-z
Gap Declaration
Finally, the similarity between imagery and part-based viewing may arise from the fact that we used complex scenes as visual stimuli. Previous studies showed that eye movements follow more systematic and repeated scanpaths under high memory workload. Future studies could investigate whether these part-based patterns persist with less complex visual stimuli. To conclude, the present study provides direct evidence that eye movements during mental imagery are not simply replayed from perception. Instead, they resemble the spatiotemporal dynamics of part-based viewing, suggesting that they support the construction of mental images piece by piece.
Abstract
Eye movements during visual mental imagery resemble those made during prior perception. Across two experiments, we investigated whether eye movements during imagery reflect a part-by-part generation of mental images, by comparing gaze patterns during mental imagery to those during part-based viewing (using a gaze-contingent window, GCW) and to those during holistic viewing (using an artificial scotoma, AS). In Experiment 1, participants freely encoded and imagined pictures before reinspecting them either part-by-part (GCW condition), or holistically (AS condition). The results show that fixation scanpaths (MultiMatch) and refixation patterns (recurrence quantification analysis) during mental imagery largely mirror those during GCW viewing. In Experiment 2, we examined whether this effect d…
Conclusions / Discussion
General discussion In this study, we investigated the role of eye movements during visual mental imagery by comparing gaze patterns during imagery to those observed in part-based, holistic, and free perception. The results of Experiment 1 show that gaze patterns during imagery closely resemble those observed when pictures are encoded part-by-part (gaze-contingent window). Experiment 2 shows that this similarity persists regardless of whether the pictures were originally encoded freely, part-by-part, or holistically. This suggests that part-based patterns during imagery are independent of prior encoding. The results provide evidence that mental images are generated by assembling distinct elements, and that eye movements reflect this construction process. Several studies on gaze patterns during mental imagery suggest a reactivation of spatial indices tied to different parts of a picture to enable perceptual recall. It has been concluded that eye movements organize the reassembly of mental images from individual parts, but this hypothesis has not been tested directly. Moreover, these studies did not investigate the specific reasons why gaze patterns during imagery often differ from th…
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