The cooperative action of different regions of our
brains gives us an amazing capacity to perform
activities as diverse as playing the piano and hitting a
tennis ball. Somehow, without conscious effort, our eyes
find the information we need to operate successfully in
the world around us. The development of head-mounted eye
trackers over recent years has made it possible to
record where we look during different active tasks, and
so work out what information our eyes supply to the
brain systems that control our limbs. We are now in a
position to explore the strategies that the eye movement
system uses in the initiation and guidance of action.
Looking and Acting examines a wide
range of visually guided behaviour, from sedentary tasks
like reading and drawing, to dynamic activities such as
driving and playing cricket. A central theme is that the
eye movement system has its own knowledge about where to
find the most appropriate information for guiding action
- information not usually available to conscious
scrutiny. Thus each type of action has its own specific
repertoire of linked eye movements, acquired in parallel
with the motor skills themselves. Starting with a brief
background to eye movement studies, the book then
reviews a range of observations and analyses of
different activities. It ends with discussions of the
nature of visual representation, the neurophysiology of
the systems involved, and the roles of attention and
learning.
Opening a field in eye movement
research, this fascinating book will be of great
interest to all vision scientists (psychologists,
physiologists, ophthalmologists) whether at
professional, graduate, or advanced undergraduate
levels. It will also be of value to musicians, artists,
sports scientists, and transport engineers, and indeed
anyone intrigued by the way we sample the visual world.
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