Abstract
The present study reports the measurement of response latencies and the recording of eye movements in a task in which adults had to enumerate dots in figures that differed in number of dots (nd = 19–23) and grouping of dots. The functional relationship between latencies per dot and mean group size was in agreement with earlier findings (van Oeffelen & Vos, 1982). Temporal information from eye movement data indicated that the relative contribution of fixation durations to overall latency was far larger than the contribution of saccades, which superseded the contribution from eyeblinks. Spatial information in the form of eye movement trajectories indicated that, in general, there occurred one or two fixations at the starting position. From this position onward, eye movements were directed toward areas of dots rather than to each dot in particular. Scanning behavior was sometimes reiterative, in the sense that groups of dots were visited more than once. The results are discussed with respect to the nature of strategies employed during a dot-enumeration task.
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This research was supported by a grant to P.G. Vos from the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Zuiver Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
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Van Oeffelen, M.P., Vos, P.G. Enumeration of dots: An eye movement analysis. Memory & Cognition 12, 607–612 (1984). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213349
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03213349