Gaze Control in the Context of Behavior

Presenter: Mary Hayhoe, Professor of Psychology, UT Austin.

Host: Preeti Verghese, Ph.D.

In everyday behavior, such as walking or driving, visual information is actively sampled from the environment by a sequence of gaze changes. The timing and choice of gaze targets and the accompanying attentional shifts are intimately linked with ongoing behavior. Nonetheless, modeling the deployment of gaze has been very difficult because it depends on characterizing the underlying task structure. One approach, consistent with observations of natural behavior, is to decompose complex behaviors into components or sub-tasks. The role of gaze is postulated to provide task-relevant information that is rewarding to the agent, with gaze targets selected on the basis of expected reward and uncertainty about the environmental state. I will review the evidence in support of these ideas and their potential for understanding momentary action decisions in the context of behaviors such as walking and driving.