Skip to main content
Log in

When looking back to nothing goes back to nothing

  • Short Communication
  • Published:
Cognitive Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Previous research showed that the eyes revisit the location in which the stimulus has been encoded when visual or verbal information is retrieved from memory. A recent study showed that this behavior still occurs 1 week after encoding, suggesting that visual, spatial and linguistic information is tightly associated with the oculomotor trace and stored as an integrated memory representation. However, it is yet unclear whether looking behavior simply remains stable between encoding and recall or whether it changes over time in a more fine-tuned manner. Here, we investigate the time course of looking behavior during recall in multiple sessions across 1 week. Participants encoded visual objects presented in one of the four locations on the computer screen. In five sessions during the week after encoding, they performed on a visual memory recall task. During retrieval, participants looked back to the encoding location, but only in the recall sessions within 1 day of encoding. We discuss different explanations for the temporal dynamics of looking behavior during recall, searching for the role of eye movements in memory.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

References

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Corina Schöne and Markus Lauber for helping with data collection.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrea L. Wantz.

Additional information

Handling Editor: Bruno Laeng, University of Oslo.

Reviewers: Valerio Santangelo, University of Perugia; Agata Bochynska, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 2.

Table 2 List of the 24 stimuli and of the five statements per stimulus used in the experiment

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wantz, A.L., Martarelli, C.S. & Mast, F.W. When looking back to nothing goes back to nothing. Cogn Process 17, 105–114 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-015-0741-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-015-0741-6

Keywords

Navigation