Symbolic Systems Forum - Daniel Richardson, Psychology Department

Daniel Richardson, Psychology Department, "Looking to Understand:

The Role of Eye Movements in Thinking, Speaking, and Listening"

ABSTRACT:

Imagine standing in front of a painting, discussing it with a friend. As you talk, your eyes will scan across the image, moving approximately three times a second. They will be drawn by characteristics of the image itself, areas of contrast or detail, as well as features of the objects or people portrayed. Eye movements are driven both by properties of the visual world and processes in a personýs mind. Your gaze might also be influenced by what your friend is saying, what you say in reply, what is thought but not said, and where you agree and disagree. If this is so, what is the relationship between your eye movements and those of your friend? How is that relationship related to the flow of conversation between you?

I will describe an experiment in which participants had their eye movements recorded while they spoke extemporaneously about a TV show whose cast members they were viewing. Later, other participants listened to these speeches while their eyes were tracked. Within this naturalistic paradigm using spontaneous speech, a number of results linking eye movements to speech comprehension, speech production and memory were replicated. More importantly, it was demonstrated that speaker and listener eye movements were coupled, and that the strength of this relationship positively correlated with listenersý comprehension. Just as the mental state of a single person can be reflected in patterns of eye movements, the commonality of mental states that is brought about by successful communication is mirrored in a similarity between speaker and listenerýs eye movements.

BIO:

Daniel Richardson is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Stanford Psychology Department. He is also one of the instructors for SSP100 this quarter.