Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

http://www.journalofvision.org/content/10/6/21

1

Investigating cultural diversity for extrafoveal
information use in visual scenes
Sébastien Miellet

Department of Psychology and Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging,
University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Xinyue Zhou

Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University,
Guangzhou, China

Lingnan He

Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University,
Guangzhou, China

Helen Rodger

Department of Psychology and Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging,
University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Roberto Caldara

Department of Psychology and Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging,
University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Culture shapes how people gather information from the visual world. We recently showed that Western observers focus on
the eyes region during face recognition, whereas Eastern observers ﬁxate predominantly the center of faces, suggesting amore effective use of extrafoveal information for Easterners compared to Westerners. However, the cultural variation in eye
movements during scene perception is a highly debated topic. Additionally, the extent to which those perceptual differences
across observers from different cultures rely on modulations of extrafoveal information use remains to be clariﬁed. We useda gaze-contingent technique designed to dynamically mask central vision, the Blindspot, during a visual search task ofanimals in natural scenes. We parametrically controlled the Blindspots and target animal sizes (0-, 2-, 5-, or 8-). We
processed eye-tracking data using an unbiased data-driven approach based on ﬁxation maps and we introduced novel
spatiotemporal analyses in order to ﬁnely characterize the dynamics of scene exploration. Both groups of observers,
Eastern and Western, showed comparable animal identiﬁcation performance, which decreased as a function of theBlindspot sizes. Importantly, dynamic analysis of the exploration pathways revealed identical oculomotor strategies for bothgroups of observers during animal search in scenes. Culture does not impact extrafoveal information use during theecologically valid visual search of animals in natural scenes.
Keywords: scene perception, culture, eye movements, extrafoveal processing
Citation: Miellet, S., Zhou, X., He, L., Rodger, H., & Caldara, R. (2010). Investigating cultural diversity for extrafoveal information
use in visual scenes. Journal of Vision, 10(6):21, 1–18, http://www.journalofvision.org/content/10/6/21, doi:10.1167/10.6.21.

Introduction
Culture shapes how we look at faces. Blais, Jack,
Scheepers, Fiset, and Caldara (2008) have recently shownthat Western Caucasians (WCs) predominantly fixate the
eye region during face recognition whereas East Asians(EAs) focus more on the nose region, yet reach comparable behavioral performance in face recognition (i.e.,
accuracy and response time) and categorization by race.
This finding is important as it shows that the biologically
relevant face processing task can be achieved with diverse
fundamental scan paths. However, the fixation strategy
used by East Asian observers remains surprising because
the abundant face literature on (Western) normal observers and brain damaged patients has robustly shown thatthe critical information for face recognition is located in
doi: 1 0. 11 67 / 1 0 . 6 . 2 1

the eyes and not the nose (e.g., Caldara et al., 2005;
Gosselin & Schyns, 2001). Since the coupling between
fixated and processed information is not perfect (conceptsof overt vs. covert attention, Posner, 1980), the question ofwhether information extracted from the eye region isuniversally used to perform face recognition remained to
be clarified. In addition, it is worth noting that the strategy
of fixating the center of the face for EA observers is notdue to social interaction norms involving gaze avoidance
for this group of observers but relies instead on a genuine
perceptual bias during visual object identification. In linewith these findings, Kelly, Miellet, and Caldara (2010)
have found that the cultural diversity of eye movement
strategies for faces extends to the identification of various
biological (sheep) and non-biological (greebles) categories of visually homogeneous stimuli. Crucially, however,Jack, Blais, Scheepers, Schyns, and Caldara (2009)

Received December 29, 2009; published June 24, 2010

ISSN 1534-7362 * ARVO

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

recently showed that Eastern observers fixate the eyeregion when they have to decode facial expressions, morethan Westerners. Indeed, facial expression decoding
requires fine-grained information use, relying mostly on
the foveated region, to efficiently discriminate across thetransmitted expression signals (i.e., discrimination
between fear and surprise from the eye region).
Therefore, one of the most plausible explanations
accounting for EA fixation strategies in object identification would consist of a better use of extrafoveal
information in this culture. EA adults fixate the nose
region when viewing faces but actually might exploit theeye region extrafoveally to recognize faces. Caldara,Zhou, and Miellet (2010) recently investigated this issue
by restricting the visual information available to observers
with Gaussian apertures, sized 2-, 5-, or 8-, dynamically
centered on WCs’ and EAs’ fixations. Crucially, in the 2and 5- conditions, the Spotlight apertures covered an
entire eye, but the eyes and the mouth were not visible
when fixating the nose. By contrast, when observers
fixated the nose in the 8- condition, the mouth and eyes
could be simultaneously viewed. Analysis of fixation
strategies showed that the differences reported by Blais
et al. (2008) were abolished in the restrictive 2- and 5conditions with both populations of observers predominantly directing their fixations to the eye region. However, in the 8- condition when the eyes were visible while
fixating the center of the face, the EA participants reverted
to their preferred central landing position. These datasuggest that the facial information required to accurately
individuate conspecifics is invariant across human beings,
but the strategies used to extract this information arelikely to be modulated by culture. Importantly, for the
purpose of the present study, the fixations directed toward
the center of gravity of faces by EA observers would
suggest a more effective use of extrafoveal information for
Easterners compared to Westerners. In line with this
explanation, Nisbett and Miyamoto (2005) suggested thata crucial question for future investigations is whether “theactual field of vision is wider for those from interdependentcultures than for those from independent cultures?”
Indeed, one of the most influential, despite arguable, viewin the cultural field assumes that the organization of thesocial systems, in which people develop and live, leads tothe diversity in cultural perceptual strategies (for a review,
see Nisbett & Masuda, 2003; Nisbett & Miyamoto, 2005).
In this framework, Western societies are seen as individualistic, which would favor the perception of focal objects
in a context (Triandis, 1995). By contrast, Eastern
societies are seen as collectivistic favoring perception
biases toward the relationship between objects (but see
Davidoff, Fonteneau, & Fagot, 2008).
This view relies on the assumption that culture shapes
perception in a variety of perceptual tasks and paradigms
including: scene perception (e.g., Miyamoto, Nisbett, &Masuda, 2006) and description (e.g., Masuda & Nisbett,2001), perceptual categorization (Norenzayan, Smith,

2

Kim, & Nisbett, 2002), and eye movements during visual
scene processing (Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005).
However, the cultural variation in eye movements during
scene perception is controversial. Chua et al. (2005)
recorded eye movements in an old–new task in which
the scene background was manipulated to either remain
identical to the encoding phase or to change in therecognition phase. The learning phase was implicit as
the participants were asked to report the degree to which
they liked the picture. Chua et al. observed some effects ofculture on recognition performance as well as on eyefixation patterns. American observers looked at the focal
object sooner and longer than the Chinese, whereas the
Chinese looked more at the background than did theAmericans. East Asians were also less likely to correctly
recognize old focal objects when presented in new
backgrounds containing unfamiliar contextual information. These findings were interpreted as being consistent
with a relative greater holistic perception of EA comparedto WC observers. The core idea of the holistic-analytic
theory of culture is that people in East Asian cultures
focus more holistically on relationships and similarities
among objects when organizing the environment (Nisbett& Miyamoto, 2005).
A series of experiments have recently challenged theexistence of cultural differences during scene perception.
Rayner, Li, Williams, Cave, and Well (2007) recorded
participants’ eye movements during 6 different tasks
including scene perception. They did not observe any
evidence that Chinese observers spent more time looking
at the background information (and, conversely less timelooking at the foreground information) than American
observers. However, Rayner et al. (2007) tested native
Chinese speakers, students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who came to the US after their college
education. Therefore, these participants may have beenfamiliar with the American culture and social norms.
Moreover, the stimuli were photographs selected to havemultiple points of interest, including people, and backgrounds in which large areas of the scene contain no
objects of interest at all; while Chua et al. used scenes inwhich observers could clearly identify a single focal
object. Boland, Chua, and Nisbett (2008) noted that
Rayner et al.’s (2007) study was not a direct replicationof Chua et al. (2005).
More recently, Evans, Rotello, Li, and Rayner (2009)used the original scenes used by Chua et al. (as well as
additional scenes for increasing the statistical power) andthe same task. They did not find any difference between
the two cultural groups (both with the entire set of stimuli
and with the subset that had been previously used by Chuaet al.). In another study, Rayner, Castelhano, and Yang
(2009) examined whether there are cultural differences in
how quickly eye movements are drawn to highly unusual
aspects of a scene. American and Chinese viewers
examined photographic scenes while performing a preference rating task. For each visual scene, participants wereJournal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

presented with either a plausible or a highly unusualversion (e.g., a character with three legs, or dogs playinggo). Even though there were differences between the scanpath used to explore normal and unusual versions of thescenes, there were no cultural differences in the eye
movements deployed while viewing either scene type. The
question of whether culture impacts visual information
extraction for visual scenes therefore remains to beclarified, as methodological differences across studies
could account for the contrasting findings.
Notably, only coarse measures of eye movements wereused in the previous studies: mean fixation duration, meansaccade length, number of fixations, and time spent in aregion of interest (ROI) or before looking directly at the
search target. Moreover, an approach in terms of ROIs
implies a dichotomic view of the eye movement sequence:
the fixations are either in the ROI or not. For instance,
during a fixation situated just a pixel from the border ofthe ROI, the analysis will determine that the participant
does not process the target, despite the fact that information processed during a fixation is larger than 1 pixel. Thisapproach can lead to analysis differences that could
explain the inconsistency of eye movement patterns acrossstudies. As quoted by Boland et al. (2008): “I we believethat differences in our findings are due to differences inthe visual stimuli and in how the spatial regions of interest
were defined.” For example in Chua et al. (2005) andEvans et al. (2009) the ROIs followed the contours of theobject itself, while in Rayner et al. (2007) the ROIs werealways rectangular. We aimed to overcome these possible
limitations by (1) using an unbiased data-driven approachbased on fixation maps (Blais et al., 2008); (2) introducing
novel spatiotemporal analyses in order to finely characterize the dynamics of scene exploration in both groups ofobservers.
Beside this methodological question, in order to understand the influence of culture on visual scene perception
we aimed to address two crucial questions: Do EA
observers use extrafoveal information more effectively
than WC observers? Does culture generally modulate eye
movement strategies in ecologically valid search tasks
with visual scenes? To directly address these questions,
we used a gaze-contingent technique designed to dynamically obscure central vision with parametric Blindspots,
permitting only extrafoveal information use. We also useda task requiring the detection and subsequent identification of animals in natural visual scenes. In order to finely
assess the central versus extrafoveal influence of visual
information, we parametrically manipulated both theBlindspot size (natural vision, 2-, 5-, or 8-) and the sizeof the targets (absent, 2-, 5-, or 8-). The Blindspot isbased on a gaze-contingent technique introduced byRayner and Bertera (1979) and originally called moving
mask. This technique has also been referred as artificial
scotoma, simulated scotoma, or foveal mask, and has beenused in a variety of paradigms: reading (Fine & Rubin,
1999; Rayner & Bertera, 1979, Rayner, Inhoff, Morrison,3

Slowiaczek, & Bertera, 1981), search (Bertera, 1988;
Bertera & Rayner, 2000; Cornelissen, Bruin, & Kooijman,
2005; Murphy & Foley-Fisher, 1989; van Diepen &d’Ydewalle, 2003; van Diepen, Ruelens, & d’Ydewalle,1999), visual learning (Castelhano & Henderson, 2008),
and object identification (Henderson, McClure, Pierce, &Schrock, 1997). This gaze-contingent technique has
proven very beneficial to investigate the visual processingof peripheral versus central retinal inputs.
The Blindspot (gaze-contingent moving mask) technique allows us to infer how effectively extrafoveal
information is used by observers. However, the techniqueshares a comparable disadvantage with response classification techniques (e.g., Gosselin & Schyns, 2001), which
relies in altering the information available compared tonatural vision. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that ourstudy includes a natural vision condition, providing abaseline for information intake when both central andextrafoveal information are available.

Methods
Participants
Fifteen Western Caucasian participants from the University of Glasgow, UK (6 males) and fifteen East Asianparticipants from the Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou,
China (8 males, young adults; mean age 26.1 years and24.7 years, respectively) participated in this study. All
participants had normal or corrected vision and were paid
U6 or equivalent per hour for their participation. All
participants gave written informed consent and theprotocol was approved by the local ethical committees.

Stimuli
Stimuli were photographs taken by the first author, withthe same camera and settings, in Naples (Florida, US),
Lille (France), and Edinburgh (UK) zoos. These stimuli
consisted of 240 pictures of zoo enclosures, 120 containing
an animal. The animal size could be either 2- (40 items),
5- (40 items), or 8- (40 items) of visual angle. Figure 1
presents examples of the stimuli. The position of theanimals was randomly distributed in the picture. The
categories of animal were various, but all highly familiar(e.g., lion, monkey, elephant, etc.). In a pre-test, 10 East
Asian and 10 West Caucasian participants, who did notparticipate to the experiment, were able to identify the
animal without any difficulty (97% correct answers). The
full-screen, 32,768 color images were 800  600 pixels
subtending 29.25- of visual angle vertically and 39- ofvisual angle horizontally at a distance of 70 cm. Images

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

4

Figure 1. Examples of the stimuli. The ﬁrst line shows 2 stimuli without any target. The second line shows the stimuli with a 2- target; thethird line, stimuli with a 5- target; and the fourth line, stimuli with an 8- target.

were presented on a Dell P1130 19W CRT monitor with arefresh rate of 170 Hz.

Apparatus
Eye movements were recorded at a sampling rate of1000 Hz with the SR Research Desktop-Mount EyeLink

2K eye tracker (with a chin/forehead rest), which has anaverage gaze position error of about 0.25-, a spatial
resolution of 0.01-, and a linear output over the range ofthe monitor used. Only the dominant eye of eachparticipant was tracked although viewing was binocular.
The experiment was implemented in Matlab (R2007a),
using the Psychophysics (PTB-3) and EyeLink Toolbox
extensions (Brainard, 1997; Cornelissen, Peters, & Palmer,

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

2002). Calibrations of eye fixations were conducted at the
beginning of the experiment using a nine-point fixation
procedure as implemented in the EyeLink API (seeEyeLink Manual) and using Matlab software. Calibrations
were then validated with the EyeLink software andrepeated when necessary until the optimal calibration
criterion was reached. At the beginning of each trial,
participants were instructed to fixate a dot at the center ofthe screen to perform a drift correction. If the drift
correction was more than 1-, a new calibration was
launched to insure an optimal recording quality. The eye
tracker, software, and setting used in Glasgow and Sun
Yat-Sen Universities were identical.
The Blindspot was either absent (0-, No Blindspot), 2-,5-, or 8- of visual angle and moved contingent to theparticipant gaze position. The display contingent to gaze
position updating required 1 ms to receive a sample fromthe eye tracker, less than 7 ms to calculate the new image,and between 0 and 6 ms to refresh the screen. Therefore,
the display was updated depending on observers’ looking
position every 11 ms on average (between 8 and 14 ms),
eliminating any impression of flickering for the observers.

Procedure
The observers of each culture participated in each
Blindspot condition in a random order. Participants started
with a training session including all the Blindspot sizes inorder to familiarize them with the gaze contingent display.
Then they were informed that they would be presented
with a series of pictures and that they would have toindicate, by button press, as quickly and as accurately as
possible, if there was an animal in the picture or not. They
were also informed that if they made a positive response,
they had to identify the animal seen in the picture byverbal report. In each of the 4 Blindspot blocks, observers
were presented with 30 images without an animal (0-),
10 with a 2-, 10 with 5-, and 10 with 8- animals. The
images in each Blindspot block were randomly drawn
from each pool of target size.
Each trial started with the presentation of a central
fixation cross. Then four crosses were presented, one in the
middle of each of the four quadrants of the computer screen.
These crosses allowed the experimenter to check that thecalibration was still accurate. In this way, we validated thecalibration between each trial. A final central fixation crossserved as a drift correction, followed by a scene presentation. Pictures were presented until the observer responded.
Each trial was subsequently followed by the 6 fixation
crosses, which preceded the next scene stimulus.

Data analyses
The behavioral performance was measured by thepercentages of correct detection and correct identification,

5and the reaction time. Only correct trials were analyzed.
We also computed the common eye-tracking measuresgenerally used in scene exploration or search studies:
number of fixations, path length, average saccade length,
average fixation duration, last fixation duration, average
distance between the fixation and the target, and percentage of fixations on the target. Additionally, we examined
the length of the saccade preceding the first fixation on thetarget. Longer saccades might indicate that more extrafoveal information has been processed in order to selectthis target area for fixation.
To compute the fixation maps, we normalized the target
coordinated so each of them was brought into the center ofthe new screen space. Fixation distribution maps wereextracted individually for Western Caucasian and East
Asian observers and each Blindspot and target size. The
fixation maps were computed according to Blais et al.
(2008). To establish significance, we used a robust
statistical approach correcting for multiple comparisonsin the fixation map space, by applying a one-tailed Pixel
test (Chauvin, Worsley, Schyns, Arguin, & Gosselin,
2005; Zcrit 9 4.86; p G 0.05) for the group fixation maps
and a two-tailed Pixel test (Zcrit k5.01k; p G 0.05) on the
differential fixation maps (see Figure 4). We used thismethod to determine whether one cultural group fixatedoutside the target area for a greater duration to process
information extrafoveally.
To investigate the dynamics of scene exploration, we
examined at each single trial gaze trajectory across time.
Figure 2 shows some examples of these trajectories. First,
when there is no target (EA participants, no target, noblindspot), the behavior is highly variable depending on
the individual’s own strategy and low-level stimuli
characteristics. The second panel represents the trials witha target and no blindspot (EA participants, 2- target, andno blindspot) and shows that the scan paths quickly
converge to the target. This pattern is also visible in thethird panel but becomes much noisier when the blindspot
is present (EA participants, 2- target, and 8- blindspot).
This analysis effectively affords a sense of the participants’ exploration strategy, and how many “local attractors” can be considered given the task and the stimuli.
However, it does not allow a direct comparison of theoculomotor behavior in different conditions or for different groups. Thus, we then normalized the duration of eachtrial in order to compute, at each time step, the center ofgravity of the cloud of fixations (k-means with one cluster
because there is one target per picture) and the dispersion
around the centroid (median of the distances between the
fixation locations and the centroid, see Figure 3). In thisway, we summarized the data with two parameters foreach time step and each group of observers: the distance
between the centroid and the center of the target (distance“a” in Figure 3), and the dispersion around the centroid(distance “b” in Figure 3). For each of the target andBlindspot size conditions, we computed, based on abootstrapping procedure (5000 samples with replacement),Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

6

Figure 2. Gaze trajectories for the single trials. The top of the z-axis (100) represents the beginning of the trial, the bottom (0) is when theparticipant presses the response key. The three examples are for EA participants, (a) no target and no Blindspot, (b) 2- target and no
Blindspot, (c) 2- target and 8- Blindspot.

the 95% confidence interval (CI) of the two parameters for
EA and WC observers at each time step (see Figures 5–8).
The benefit of this method compared to a “region ofinterest” type of approach is that we have a sensitive,
continuous measure of the distance between the eye andthe target; and not just a dichotomic measure of fixationsin an area of interest, leading to proportion of fixations on
the target. Here, we wanted to establish if the distance
between the fixations and the target is larger for one
cultural group than for the other at specific processing
stages.
Finally, we used the ScanMatch Matlab toolbox(Cristino, Mathôt, Theeuwes & Gilchrist, in press) tocompare the saccadic eye movement sequences (scanpaths). This method is based on the Needleman–Wunschalgorithm, which is commonly used in bioinformatics toalign protein or nucleotide sequences. This techniquereturns a unique matching score between the two input

sequences. Here, we computed the mean matching scoreswithin each cultural group and across groups. The intragroup matching scores were calculated by matching thescan paths of each participant with all the other participants of the same group. Only the scan paths for identicalstimuli were compared. The inter-group matching scores
were obtained by matching the scan paths of eachparticipant of one group with all the participants of theother group. We did not use any temporal binning and the
ScanMatch threshold was set to 3.5 (see the ScanMatch
Toolbox web site for details about the options andspecifications). The substitution matrix was based on the
Euclidian distance and the spatial binning included 16 *12 bins, so each spatial bin was 2- high and wide. These
analyses allowed us to directly compare the exploration
strategies for both cultural groups. If the exploration
pathways are different between cultural groups of observers, then the inter-group matching scores should be

Figure 3. Graphical depiction of the spatiotemporal analysis based on the distance between the ﬁxation centroid at each time step and thecenter of the target. The red and green crosses represent the centroid of the ﬁxation cloud and center of the target, respectively. The bluelines represent the eye trajectories during each single trial. The black circles represent the dispersion around the centroid at each timestep.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

smaller than the intra-group matching scores. We compared the inter- versus intra-group matching scores
separately for each of the 16 experimental conditions,using a t-test and Bonferroni correction for multiple
comparisons.

Results
Behavioral performance
Percentage of correct detection, percentage of correct
identification, and average reaction time are presented inTable 1; 2 (Culture of Observer: British or Chinese) 
4 (Blindspot size: No Blindspot, 2-, 5-, 8-)  3 (target
size: 2-, 5-, 8-) ANOVAs were conducted on participant’s
behavioral performance indexes. For the percentages ofcorrect detection and correct identification, and thereaction time, the ANOVAs yielded main effects ofBlindspot size (F(3, 84) = 15.80, p G 0.001; F(3, 84) =99.06, p G 0.001; F(3, 84) = 32.20, p G 0.001,
respectively) and target size (F(2, 56) = 59.55, p G
0.001; F(2, 56) = 124.34, p G 0.001; F(2, 56) = 53.20, p G
0.001, respectively). Detection and identification weremore accurate and faster for small Blindspots (Correct
detection: 96%, 93%, 88%, and 89% for no Blindspot
to 8- Blindspot, respectively; Correct identification: 92%,
86%, 76%, 67%, respectively; Reaction time: 1.50,
1.71, 2.36, 2.68 s) and large targets (Correct detection:
84%, 93%, and 98% for 2- to 8- targets, respectively;
Correct identification: 67%, 81%, and 92%; Reaction
time: 2.59, 2.01, 1.59 s). In addition, the interaction
between Blindspot and target sizes was also significant(F(6, 168) = 10.26, p G 0.001; F(6, 168) = 21.38, p G
0.001; F(6, 168) = 13.52, p G 0.001, respectively). The
effect of target size on correct detection, correct identification, and reaction time was globally larger for wider
Blindspots (Correct detection: F(2,56) = 8.72, p G 0.001,
partial eta-squared (p)2) = 0.28; F(2,56) = 13.13, p G

70.001, p)2 = 0.37; F(2,56) = 45.47, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.67;
F(2,56) = 25.97, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.54 for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, respectively; Correct identification: F(2,56) =9.99, p G 0.05, p)2 = 0.15; F(2,56) = 22.60, p G 0.001,p)2 = 0.51; F(2,56) = 73.71, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.77; F(2,56) =95.21, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.81, respectively; Reaction time:F(2,56) = 2.75, p = 0.07, p)2 = 0.11; F(2,56) = 25.60, p G
0.001, p)2 = 0.54; F(2,56) = 49.20, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.69;
F(2,56) = 15.23, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.41). For all the target
sizes (2-, 5-, and 8-), the correct detection was above
90% with no Blindspot and with a 2- Blindspot, but it was
between 75% and 80% in the 5- and 8- Blindspot
conditions when the target was 2- large and reached 90%
only when the target was 5- or larger. The correct
identification and reaction time indexes showed a similar
but somehow more sensitive pattern; the slope of the target
size effect (less correct identifications and longer reaction
times for smaller targets) progressively increased as theBlindspot became bigger. In the no Blindspot condition, thereaction time had a floor value around 1.5 s for any target
size. In the 2- Blindspot condition, this value was reachedwhen the target was at least 5- large; then 8- in the 5Blindspot condition; finally, the floor reaction time was notreached, for any target size, in the 8- Blindspot condition.
No other effect was significant including the three-way
interaction and the main effect of culture.

Eye-tracking measures
Table 2 presents the number of fixations, path length,
average saccade length, average fixation duration, andlast fixation duration; 2 (Culture of Observer: British or
Chinese)  4 (Blindspot size: No Blindspot, 2-, 5-, 8-) 
4 (target size: No Target, 2-, 5-, 8-) ANOVAs wereconducted on these measures. Table 3 presents theaverage distance between the fixation and the target, thepercentage of fixations on the target, and the saccade
length before target fixation; 2 (Culture of Observer:

No Blindspot

Blindspot 2-

Blindspot 5-

Blindspot 8-

Target size (degrees)

Percentage of correct detection
Percentage of correct identiﬁcation
Reaction time for correct detection

EA
WC
EA
WC
EA
WC

2

5

8

2

5

8

2

5

8

2

5

8

91
95
87
93
1.66
1.51

95
99
89
96
1.49
1.43

99
100
94
97
1.45
1.45

91
92
78
78
2.29
1.97

88
92
83
85
1.69
1.49

98
100
94
96
1.40
1.34

74
76
51
57
3.42
3.39

92
91
82
78
2.07
2.33

96
100
91
96
1.49
1.47

77
81
45
53
3.00
3.43

92
97
67
71
2.75
2.82

95
99
81
88
1.90
2.27

Table 1. Average percentage of correct detection and identiﬁcation, and reaction time (in seconds) for each culture of the observer,
Blindspot size, and target size.

Last ﬁxation duration (ms)Fixation duration (ms)

Saccade length (degrees)

Path length (degrees)

Table 2. Average number of ﬁxations, path length (in degrees), saccade length (in degrees), ﬁxation duration (in milliseconds), and last ﬁxation duration (in milliseconds) for
each culture of the observers for Blindspot size and target size including the trials without target.

6.17
9.50
42.20
69.36
6.18
7.10
228
219
227
213

4.46
4.45
18.10
17.96
3.77
3.68
257
274
309
326

4.56
4.73
15.56
18.91
3.24
3.67
252
252
312
336

4.74
4.59
14.54
12.60
2.89
2.76
260
242
297
304

7.54
9.17
53.06
62.67
6.28
6.25
249
244
243
239

5.25
5.05
22.70
22.71
4.07
4.13
293
273
349
327

4.70
4.38
18.11
15.92
3.46
3.46
269
290
311
367

3.75
3.61
10.15
9.58
2.39
2.45
303
274
374
288

6.45
9.22
46.83
72.39
6.32
7.06
248
241
255
238

6.37
7.14
31.62
37.36
4.57
4.74
296
302
357
348

5.64
5.84
23.12
25.67
3.66
3.67
280
278
348
334

4.49
4.38
15.97
14.87
3.14
2.99
265
264
303
307

8.66
10.74
73.90
92.45
7.53
7.81
225
235
230
257

7.68
7.31
56.15
55.68
6.17
6.79
261
277
296
352

6.59
5.72
35.53
31.21
4.98
4.61
287
306
335
381

6.23
5.13
29.02
21.70
4.38
3.83
254
265
258
294

Miellet et al.

EA
WC
EA
WC
EA
WC
EA
WC
EA
WC
Nb ﬁxations

Notarget852
52NotargetNo Blindspot

8No
targetBlindspot 2-

Target size (degrees)25Blindspot 5-

8Notarget2

5Blindspot 8-

8

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

8

British or Chinese)  4 (Blindspot size: No Blindspot, 2-,5-, 8-)  3 (target size: 2-, 5-, 8-) ANOVAs wereconducted on these measures.
The number of fixations revealed main effects ofBlindspot and target sizes (F(3, 84) = 19.83, p G 0.0001;
F(3, 84) = 23.53, p G 0.0001, respectively), as well as aninteraction between Blindspot and target sizes (F(9, 252) =6.32, p G 0.0001). The observers made more fixations withlarger Blindspots (5.34, 5.41, 6.13, and 7.26 for no
Blindspot to 8- Blindspot, respectively) and smaller
targets (8.27, 5.96, 5.28, and 4.64 for no target to 8target, respectively). The effect of Blindspot size on thenumber of fixations was smaller in the no target condition
than in the other 3 target size conditions (F(3,84) = 7.82,
p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.26; F(3,84) = 18.73, p G 0.001, p)2 =0.46; F(3,84) = 11.27, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.34; F(3,84) =17.67, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.45 for No Blindspot to 8Blindspot, respectively). In the no Blindspot condition, the number of fixations attained a floor value of 4 to
5 fixations as soon as the target was 2- large. In the2- Blindspot condition, this was reached when the target
was at least 5- large; then when the target was 8- in the
5- Blindspot condition; and not reached in the 8- Blindspot
condition. The triple interaction Blindspot  target size observers’ culture was not significant (F G 1). Theinteraction between target size and culture reachedsignificance (F(3, 84) = 3.73, p G 0.05), mainly becauseof higher number of fixations for WC observers in theno target condition (no target: WC = 9.66, EA = 7.2;
2- target: WC = 5.99, EA = 5.94; 5- target: WC = 5.16,
EA = 5.37; 8- target: WC = 4.43, EA = 4.80). However, inthe four target size conditions, none of the post-hoc twotailed t-tests between EA and WC observers reachedsignificance (ts(28) G 1). No other effect was significant.
A similar pattern of main effects and interaction
between Blindspot and target sizes was observed for thefollowing variables: Path length (F(3, 84) = 35.43, p G
0.0001; F(3, 84) = 37.15, p G 0.0001, F(9, 252) = 7.67,
p G 0.0001); Average distance between the fixation andthe target (F(3, 84) = 35.89, p G 0.0001; F(2, 56) =100.68, p G 0.0001, F(6, 168) = 8.68, p G 0.0001);
Percentage of fixation on the target (F(3, 84) = 29.50, p G
0.0001; F(2, 56) = 674.33, p G 0.0001, F(6, 168) = 6.83,
p G 0.0001). The path length and average distance to thetarget were longer and the percentage of fixation in thetarget area was lower with larger Blindspots (Path length:25.69-, 26.75-, 32.94-, and 49.35- for no Blindspot to
8- Blindspot, respectively; Average distance: 2.24-, 2.32-,
2.66-, and 3.30-; Fixation on the target: 52.78%, 50.63%,
48.87%, and 43.18%) and smaller targets (Path length:62.79, 32.70, 23.02, and 16.23 for no target to 8- target,
respectively; Average distance: 3.40, 2.48, and 2.00 for 2to 8- targets, respectively; Fixation on the target: 27.77%,
53.27%, and 65.57%). Like for the number of fixations, inthe no Blindspot condition, the path length showed a floor
value between 10- and 20- as soon as the target was
2- large. In the 2- Blindspot condition, this was reachedJournal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.
No Blindspot

9Blindspot 2-

Blindspot 5-

Blindspot 8-

Target size (degrees)

Distance ﬁxation–target (degrees)
Percentage of ﬁxations on target
Saccade length before target
ﬁxation (degrees)

EA
WC
EA
WC
EA
WC

2

5

8

2

5

8

2

5

8

2

5

8

2.54
2.15
34
32
4.65
5.38

2.29
2.55
54
56
7.48
8.72

2.04
1.79
69
71
7.59
7.77

3.18
3.39
34
31
5.51
4.02

2.24
1.66
55
57
7.12
7.07

1.75
1.63
64
62
7.27
8.22

4.03
3.64
26
24
4.84
4.87

2.25
2.41
56
56
6.46
7.13

1.95
1.61
65
66
7.27
7.09

4.17
4.02
19
21
5.37
6.60

3.50
2.86
44
49
7.30
7.64

2.86
2.23
64
63
7.06
7.51

Table 3. Average distance between the ﬁxation and the target (in degrees) and percentage of ﬁxations on the target for each culture ofobserver, Blindspot size, and target size including the trials without target.

when the target was at least 5- large; then when the target
was 8- for the 5- Blindspot; and not reached for the
8- Blindspot (effect of target size on path length: F(3,84) =29.86, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.58; F(3,84) = 30.54, p G 0.001,p)2 = 0.58; F(3,84) = 22.06, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.50;
F(3,84) = 32.46, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.60 for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, respectively). In a similar way, in the no
Blindspot condition, the average distance to the center of
the target was in the range of 2- to 2.5- for all the target
sizes. In the 2- and 5- Blindspot condition, this range wasreached when the target was at least 5- large; and thisrange was not reached in the 8- Blindspot condition (effectof target size on distance to the target: F(2,56) = 4.92, p G
0.05, p)2 = 0.18; F(2,56) = 43.88, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.67;
F(2,56) = 39.77, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.64; F(2,56) = 30.62,
p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.58 for the 4 Blindspot conditions,
respectively). The pattern of interaction was a bit lessclear for the percentage of fixation inside the target area,
maybe because the effect of target size was very strong in
all the Blindspot conditions (effect of target size on
percentage of fixation: F(2,56) = 224.80, p G 0.001, p)2 =0.91; F(2,56) = 151.56, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.87; F(2,56) =274.56, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.93; F(2,56) = 238.49, p G
0.001, p)2 = 0.92 for the 4 Blindspot conditions,
respectively).
The average saccade length showed the same general
pattern (F(3, 84) = 65.81, p G 0.0001; F(3, 84) = 88.73,
p G 0.0001, F(9, 252) = 7.92, p G 0.0001) and a tripleinteraction (F(9, 252) = 2.27, p G 0.05); however, theinteractions between Blindspot size and culture or
between target size and culture were not significant(Fs G 1). The observers made shorter saccades when theBlindspot was smaller (4.14-, 4.06-, 4.51-, and 5.77- forno Blindspot to 8- Blindspot, respectively) or the target
larger (6.78, 4.73, 3.84 and 3.12 for no target to 8- target,
respectively. As for other measures, the average saccade
length showed a plateau in the no Blindspot condition,
here between 3- and 4- for targets of 2- or larger. This
range was attained for 5- targets or larger in the 2- and
5- Blindspot conditions; and the average saccade length
was never below 4- in the 8- Blindspot condition (effect oftarget size on average saccade length: F(3,84) = 101.04,
p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.82; F(3,84) = 87.60, p G 0.001, p)2 =0.80; F(3,84) = 45.83, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.68; F(3,84) =55.99, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.72 for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, respectively).
The average fixation duration also showed the general
pattern (F(3, 84) = 14.79, p G 0.0001; F(3, 84) = 63.67,
p G 0.0001, F(9, 252) = 8.36, p G 0.0001) and a three-way
interaction (F(9, 252) = 2.47, p G 0.05) with trends ofinteraction between Blindspot size and culture (F(3, 84) =2.42, p = 0.074) and between target size and culture
F(3, 84) = 2.75, p = 0.05). The fixation durations were theshortest in the no Blindspot and no target conditions; whena Blindspot or a target was present, the fixations durations
decreased as the size of the Blindspot or the target
increased (248, 275, 272, and 263 ms for No Blindspot
to 8- Blindspot, respectively; 236, 279, 276, and 266 ms
for no target to 8- target, respectively). For this variable,
the pattern of interaction between Blindspot and target
sizes showed a global increase of the target size effect forlarger Blindspots (effect of target size on average fixation
duration: F(3,84) = 19.03, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.46; F(3,84) =15.94, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.42; F(3,84) = 29.03, p G 0.001,p)2 = 0.57; F(3,84) = 40.12, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.65 for the
4 Blindspot conditions, respectively). The pattern ofinteraction was nonetheless relatively more complex thanfor other variables, probably due to the fact that fixation
durations are also impacted by more complex online
visual and cognitive processing. From the three-way
interaction, we examined separately the results for EA
and WC participants. EA and WC observers showed
main effects of Blindspot and target sizes (EA observers:
F(3,42) = 12.16, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.50; F(3,42) = 35.87,
p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.75, respectively; WC observers:
F(3,42) = 5.97, p G 0.01, p)2 = 0.40; F(3,42) = 29.34, p G
0.001, p)2 = 0.77) as well as the Blindspot  target
interaction (EA observers: F(9,126) = 7.39, p G 0.001,p)2 = 0.38; WC observers: F(9,126) = 3.92, p G 0.001,p)2 = 0.30, respectively). We also examined more
specifically the Blindspot size by culture, and the target
size by culture interactions. In none of the 4 Blindspot

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

conditions the effect of culture was significant (ts(28) G 1).
The interaction between culture and Blindspot size on
fixation duration seemed to be due to the slightly different
effect of Blindspot size for EA and WC observers only in
the Blindspot conditions (excluding the no Blindspot
condition, EA = 249 ms, WC = 247 ms). For EA
observers, the fixation durations decreased when theBlindspot size increased (278, 272, and 257 ms for 2-,5-, and 8- Blindspot, respectively). In contrast, for WC
observers, the fixation durations remained constant acrossBlindspot conditions (270, 271, and 271 ms). However, as
showed earlier, there was no significant effect of culture in
any of the Blindspot conditions (with a 0.05 threshold andthe results would be even further from significance with
applying a multiple comparisons correction). For thetarget size by culture interaction, none of post-hoc twotailed t-tests between EA and WC observers weresignificant in the 4 target size conditions (ts(28) G 1) andthe pattern of results did not show any specific trend (EAobservers: 238, 277, 272, and 270 ms for the 4 target size
conditions, respectively; WC observers: 235, 282, 281,
and 261 ms).
The last fixation duration revealed a main effect oftarget size (F(3, 84) = 61.10, p G 0.0001), an interaction
between Blindspot and target sizes (F(9, 252) = 2.19, p G0.05), an interaction between culture and Blindspot size

10

(F(3, 84) = 3.35, p G 0.05), and a triple interaction (F(9,252) = 2.29, p G 0.05). The last fixation duration was theshortest in the no target condition and shorter in the 8target condition than in the 2- and 5- target conditions(237.92, 332.46, 338.57, and 303.74 ms for the 4 target
size conditions, respectively). The interaction between
Blindspot and target sizes was due to a Blindspot effectsignificant only in the no target and 8- target conditions,explaining why the main effect of Blindspot size is not
significant for this variable (effect of Blindspot size on last
fixation duration: F(3,84) = 4.26, p G 0.01, p)2 = 0.52;
F(3,84) = 2.15, p 9 0.1, p)2 = 0.09; F(3,84) = 1.06, p 90.3, p)2 = 0.05; F(3,84) = 3.75, p G 0.05, p)2 = 0.15 forthe 4 target conditions, respectively). Like for the average
fixation duration, the interaction between culture andBlindspot size seemed to be due to the slightly different
effect of Blindspot size for EA and WC observers only for
the Blindspot conditions (excluding the no Blindspot
condition, EA = 286 ms, WC = 295 ms). For EA
observers, the last fixation durations decreased when theBlindspot size increased (319, 316, and 280 ms for 2-, 5-,
and 8- Blindspot, respectively). In contrast, for WC
observers, the last fixation durations slightly increased
for larger Blindspots (305, 307, and 321 ms). However,there was no significant effect of culture in any of the
4 Blindspot conditions (ts(28) G 1). From the three-way

Figure 4. Group and differential ﬁxation maps for the 8- Blindspot condition. Note that the position of the targets has been centered tonormalize the location in order to compute the ﬁxation maps across targets. First and second line: Fixation maps of East Asian (EA) andWestern Caucasian (WC) observers for each target size condition. Third line: Fixation biases for Western Caucasian (WCVred) and East
Asian (EAVblue) observers are highlighted by subtracting WC and the EA Z-scored group ﬁxation maps. The target areas are
represented by the brighter circle in the middle of the screen. Areas ﬁxated above chance are delimited by white borders. Similar ﬁxation
maps were obtained for the other Blindspot conditions.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

interaction, we examined separately the results for EA andWC participants. For EA and WC observers, the last
fixation duration showed a main effect of target size (EAobservers: F(3,42) = 28.86, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.71; WC
observers: F(3,42) = 33.08, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.79). The
main effect of Blindspot size and the Blindspot  target
interaction were only significant for EA observers (EAobservers: F(3,42) = 5.80, p G 0.01, p)2 = 0.33; F(9,126) =3.96, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.25, respectively; WC observers:
F(3,42) = 0.94, p 9 0.4, p)2 = 0.09; F(9,126) = 0.94, p 90.4, p)2 = 0.09, respectively). However, only 1 of the 16
post-hoc two-tailed t-tests (4 Blindspot sizes  4 target
sizes) between EA and WC observers lead to a p-value
smaller than 0.05 (2- Blindspot and 8- target: t(28) = 0.99,
p = 0.0081) and this comparison did not reach significancewhen using the Bonferroni multiple comparisons correction (corrected ! = 0.0031).

11

The length of the saccade preceding the first fixation on
the target revealed again main effects of Blindspot andtarget sizes (F(3,84) = 3.17, p G 0.05; F(2,56) = 111.3, p G
0.001) as well as an interaction between these two factors(F(6,168) = 2.72, p G 0.05). The saccade before the first
fixation on the target was the longest in the no Blindspot
and 8- Blindspot conditions (6.88-, 6.55-, 6.26-, and 6.87for the 4 Blindspot conditions). It was shorter for the
2- target conditions relatively to the 5- and 8- target
conditions (5.14, 7.33, and 7.45 for the 2- to 8- targets).
The effect of the target size on the saccade length before
fixating the target was smaller for larger Blindspots (effectof target size on saccade length before target: F(2,56) =59.93, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.73; F(2,56) = 30.23, p G 0.001,p)2 = 0.58; F(2,56) = 14.43, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.40;
F(2,56) = 10.59, p G 0.001, p)2 = 0.32 for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, respectively). The three-way interaction

Figure 5. Average distance between the centroid and the target (solid lines with markers) and dispersion around the centroid (dashedlines, no marker) in degrees over time. The 4 graphs represent the 2 parameters in the no target condition and for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, for East Asian (EAVblue) and Western Caucasian (WCVred) observers. The shade area around each curve represents the
95% CI.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

between Blindspot size, target size, and culture wassignificant (F(6,168) = 2.26, p G 0.05). EA observers
showed only a significant main effect of target size
(F(3,42) = 0.54, p = 0.057; F(2,28) = 47.70, p G 0.001;
F(6,84) = 1.10, p 9 0.37) while WC observers showed
main effects of Blindspot and target size, as well as theinteraction between these 2 factors (F(3,42) = 3.81, p G
0.05; F(2,28) = 72.00, p G 0.001; F(6,84) = 3.66, p G
0.005). However, only 1 of the 12 post-hoc two-tailed ttests (4 Blindspot sizes  4 target sizes) between EA
and WC observers lead to a p-value smaller than 0.05
(2- Blindspot and 2- target: t(28) = 0.99, p = 0.0172) andthis comparison did not reach significance when using the
Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (corrected! = 0.0042).

12

Crucially, we did not observe any main effect of culture
on any of these measures (all Fs G 1 except for the
average distance between fixation and target, F(1, 28) =2.86, p = 0.11 and saccade length before target fixation,
F(1,28) = 2.1, p = 0.16).

Fixation maps
The fixation maps revealed that participants fixate
significantly longer on the target area (Zcrit 9 k4.25k;
p G 0.05). The differential fixation maps (WC j EA Zscored group fixation maps) did not show any culturalbias. Neither of the observer groups looked more than theother inside or outside the target area (Zcrit k5.01k; p G

Figure 6. Average distance between the centroid and the target (solid lines with markers) and dispersion around the centroid (dashedlines, no marker) in degrees over time. The 4 graphs represent the 2 parameters in the 2- target condition and for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, for East Asian (EAVblue) and Western Caucasian (WCVred) observers. The shaded area around each curve represents the
95% CI.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

130.05). The same pattern was observed for the four
Blindspot sizes and four target sizes. Figure 4 represents
the group and differential fixation maps for the most
severe degradation of central information, the 8- Blindspot
condition. The fixation maps were similar for the other
Blindspot conditions.

the exploration pattern is noisier with smallest targets andlargest Blindspots. In all of the conditions, the dynamic ofscene exploration is remarkably similar for EA and WC
observers. Both groups of observers converge to the target
at the same time during the exploration and stay on thetarget until they give their answer.

Dynamic of scene exploration

ScanMatch

As shown in Figures 5–8, there is no indication of
obvious and consistent differences between the 2 groupsof observers in the dynamic of scene exploration. The notarget conditions show a divergent pattern for all theBlindspot conditions. The conditions with targets show aconvergent pattern toward the target. As we would expect,

The matching scores for each culture and between
cultures are shown in Table 4. t-Statistics and p-values
for the contrasts intra-culture vs. between cultures arealso presented for all experimental conditions. The
Bonferroni-corrected ! is 0.0031. The ScanMatch analysis
revealed significantly lower matching scores between

Figure 7. Average distance between the centroid and the target (solid lines with markers) and dispersion around the centroid (dashedlines, no marker) in degrees over time. The 4 graphs represent the 2 parameters in the 5- target condition and for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, for East Asian (EAVblue) and Western Caucasian (WCVred) observers. The shaded area around each curve represents the
95% CI.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

14

Figure 8. Average distance between the centroid and the target (solid lines with markers) and dispersion around the centroid (dashedlines, no marker) in degrees over time. The 4 graphs represent the 2 parameters in the 8- target condition and for the 4 Blindspot
conditions, for East Asian (EAVblue) and Western Caucasian (WCVred) observers. The shaded area around each curve represents the
95% CI.

cultures only for the 5- and 8- Blindspot conditions andwhen there was a target. None of the other conditions was
significant.

Discussion
The core finding of the present study is that EA andWC observers show comparable abilities in the use of
extrafoveal information during the visual search of ananimal in natural scenes. The gaze-contingent Blindspot
technique revealed similar exploration strategies in bothgroups of observers. Such similarity in eye movements
was also paired by equal behavioral performances in both
cultures.

The larger the Blindspot size, the smaller were thetarget detection and identification rates. Reaction times
also directly increased as a function of the Blindspot
aperture size. These behavioral results are consistent withprevious findings showing that performance is impairedby a central scotoma (Bertera, 1988; Murphy & FoleyFisher, 1989; Rayner & Bertera, 1979). Despite such
performance impairments due to the Blindspot, enoughinformation can be extracted extrafoveally during the
movement of attention that accompanies saccade programming to allow a good detection and identification
performance in all conditions: 77% and 81% correct
detection, 45% and 53% correct identification for EA andWC observers, respectively in the most difficult situation,that is 8- Blindspot and 2- target.
In line with previous studies (Evans et al., 2009; Rayner
et al., 2009, 2007), none of the global eye-tracking

Miellet et al.
Table 4. Average matching scores (using ScanMatch) within each culture of observer, between cultures and for each Blindspot size, and target size. t-Statistics and p-values
for the contrasts intra-culture vs. between cultures are also presented for all experimental conditions (Bonferroni-corrected ! = 0.0031, signiﬁcant p-values are in italics).

0.49
0.50
0.44
8.36
0.000
0.46
0.48
0.44
5.58
0.000
0.48
0.44
0.42
5.13
0.000
0.42
0.38
0.40
0.34
0.738
0.50
0.50
0.45
7.27
0.000
0.46
0.49
0.43
5.91
0.000
0.48
0.44
0.40
8.02
0.000
0.41
0.40
0.40
0.67
0.508
0.57
0.45
0.54
1.26
0.215
0.56
0.45
0.53
1.28
0.209
0.54
0.45
0.52
1.55
0.129
0.44
0.37
0.42
0.75
0.457
0.53
0.51
0.51
2.29
0.027
0.53
0.52
0.53
0.19
0.847
0.54
0.51
0.51
3.00
0.005
0.42
0.42
0.41
0.30
0.768
EA
WC
EA vs. WC
t(43)
p

No
target852
52NotargetNo Blindspot

8No
targetBlindspot 2-

Target size (degrees)25Blindspot 5-

8Notarget2

5Blindspot 8-

8

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

15

measures was significantly different between the twogroups of observers. The number of fixations, path length,
average saccade length, average fixation duration, last
fixation duration, average distance between the fixationand the target, percentage of fixations on the target, andthe length of the saccade preceding the first fixation on thetarget, all showed that culture does not impact on the
global oculomotor strategy during animal search inscenes. The Blindspot manipulation also confirmed previous observations from gaze-contingent studies masking
central vision. The foveal degradation results in increased
saccadic amplitudes (Cornelissen et al., 2005; van Diepen
et al., 1999) and fixation durations (Cornelissen et al.,2005; van Diepen, 2001; van Diepen, De Graef, &d’Ydewalle, 1995; van Diepen & d’Ydewalle, 2003).
The fixation maps revealed that, not surprisingly, theobservers fixate the target most of the time during trials innatural vision (without Blindspot). In a less intuitive way,
the fixation maps were similar regardless of the size of theBlindspot. The observers fixated on the target even if, indoing so, the target is no longer visible (particularly in thecases where the Blindspot is larger than the target). Thiscounterproductive tendency to fixate with the scotoma
area has been observed by Bertera (1988) and Henderson
et al. (1997), and the capacity to overcome this compulsive fixation tendency seems to take a long time to develop(20 months or more in patients with central scotoma,
Timberlake et al., 1986).
A more efficient strategy to adapt to the task at hand
would have consisted of fixating beside the target toprocess it extrafoveally. This would be possible at least
when the target and the Blindspot are small, as the
projection of the target is close enough to the fovea.
However, such an eye movement strategy was not
deployed by either group of observers. If EA observers
had shown better extrafoveal information use, we would
have expected more fixations outside the target area forthese observers than for WC observers. The differential
fixation maps between the two cultures show that this is
not the case, as no significant fixation differences, in termsof looking inside or outside the target area, were foundbetween the groups of observers. One possible interpretation of the fixation map data is that EA observers, like WC
observers, cannot repress saccades toward the target but
their extrafoveal processing is more efficient than WC
observers. However, this interpretation is inconsistent
with the fact that there is no performance difference
between the two groups of observers.
The analysis of the dynamics of scene exploration
across time revealed a divergent behavior in the absenceof target. When no target captures attention, the low-levelfeatures of the scene drive the oculomotor behavior,leading to individual strategies in information sampling.
The presence of a target leads to its detection and therapid convergence of eye movement scan paths, withobservers maintaining fixations on the target until response.
This is true with normal vision, but more surprisingly, this

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

pattern is observed even with a Blindspot. We would
have expected that, when the foveal information ismasked, the most efficient strategy would consist in
making a saccade away from the target in order to process
the animal extrafoveally after localization. We did notobserve such a strategy. Instead, even in the most difficult
condition (8- Blindspot and 2- target), the observers ofboth groups keep foveating the target until response.
Previous research showed that visually guided saccadic
eye movements most often closely follow shifts ofattention (Hoffman & Subramaniam, 1995; Remington,
1980; Shepherd, Findlay, & Hockey, 1986). Hence, ourdata suggest that the strategy adopted by the participants
is to use the extrafoveal information extracted during theshift of attention preceding the saccade toward the target.
This may be due to a tight coupling, during scene
processing, between overt and covert attention. The
movement of attention to the target in order to process it
extrafoveally is probably extremely difficult to perform
without launching a saccade. All together, the relatively
short reaction times (EA: 3 s; WC: 3.43 s in the mostdifficult condition, 8- Blindspot and 2- target conditions),
low number of fixations (EA: 7.68; WC: 7.31 in the
8- Blindspot and 2- target conditions), and the fast
convergence to the target suggest that high-level information related to the task can be extracted extrafoveally andthat not only high-contrast or high-saliency features draw
attention and gaze. This is consistent with the view thatthe human visual system makes extensive use of top-down
mechanisms at an early stage of visual processing for
facilitating object search in natural scenes (see for
instance Torralba, Oliva, Castelhano, & Henderson,2006).
The ScanMatch analysis revealed differences in the scanpaths between EA and WC only in the most dramatic
foveal degradation conditions (Blindspot 5- and 8-) andwhen there was a target in the scene. In the most natural
conditions, without a Blindspot, we did not observe any
cultural effect on exploration strategies. However, theseobservations show that culture impacts exploration strategies in specific visual constrained conditions, with large
central scotomas. Future studies are necessary to clarify
the nature of such cultural variation in information
sampling.
Our results are in line with Evans et al. (2009) and
Rayner et al.’s (2009, 2007) studies and do not confirm
the cultural influence on oculomotor strategies observedby Chua et al. (2005). However, the task and stimulus
complexity used here are different from those used in
Chua et al. (2005) and Evans et al. (2009), which usedaesthetic judgments and memory tasks; or Rayner et al.
(2009) that used anomalous stimuli, whereas here we used
an animal search task. As noted by Rayner et al. (2007),the number of objects of interest in the scene, for example,
can modulate the cultural differences in scene exploration.
Moreover, as argued above, analyses based on ROI could
lead to differences and inconsistency across studies. Our

16results invite caution to the generalization that there arecultural variations in eye movements. The cultural differences observed in specific tasks are not due to generalperceptual strategies.
Crucially, nothing in our data allows us to draw theconclusion that culture impacts on extrafoveal informationuse during visual search in natural scenes. We did notobserve any evidence of greater use of extrafoveal
information in EA compared to WC observers, neither inthe eye movement strategies nor in the behavioral
performance. However, the results of our study do notallow us to draw firm conclusions about the precedence ofholistic vs. analytical perception in Eastern vs. Westerncultures, respectively. Indeed, extrafoveal information
extraction during each single fixation can be similar inboth cultures, but how observers integrate the information
extracted during multiple fixations could differ depending
on cultural factors. This study indicates that the culturaldifferences consistently observed in face perception are
not due to general perceptual biases modulating extrafoveal information use, but instead most probably pertain
to the identification of visually homogeneous object
processing. In order to test the hypothesis of a better useof extrafoveal information in EA observers, it is necessary
to directly use the Blindspot paradigm and analysis during
face recognition.

Acknowledgments
RC and SM are supported by the Economic and Social
Research Council and Medical Research Council (ESRC/
RES-060-25-0010). We thank Keith Rayner and an
anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments during
the reviewing process.
Commercial relationships: none.
Corresponding author: Sebastien Miellet.
Email: miellet@psy.gla.ac.uk.
Address: Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow,
58, Hillhead Street, Glasgow, G12 8QB, UK.

References
Bertera, J. H. (1988). The effect of simulated scotomas on
visual search in normal subjects. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 29, 470–475.
Bertera, J. H., & Rayner, K. (2000). Eye movements andthe span of the effective visual stimulus in visual
search. Perception & Psychophysics, 62, 576–585.
Blais, C., Jack, R. E., Scheepers, C., Fiset, D., & Caldara,
R. (2008). Culture shapes how we look at faces. PLoS
ONE, 3, e3022.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

Boland, J. E., Chua, H. F., & Nisbett, R. (2008). How we
see it: Culturally different eye movement patterns
over visual scenes. In K. Rayner, D. Shen, X. Bai, &G. Yan (Eds.), Cognitive and cultural influences on
eye movements (pp. 363–378). Tianjin, China: People’s
Press/Psychology Press.
Brainard, D. H. (1997). The psychophysics toolbox.
Spatial Vision, 10, 433–436.
Caldara, R., Rossion, B., Mayer, E., Smith, M., Gosselin, F.,& Schyns, P. G. (2005). Does prosopagnosia take theeyes out from faces? Evidence for a defect in the use ofdiagnostic facial information in a single case. Journalof Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 1–15.
Caldara, R., Zhou, X., & Miellet, S. (2010). Putting
culture under the spotlight reveals universal information use for face recognition. PLoS ONE, 5, e9708.
Castelhano, M. S., & Henderson, J. M. (2008). Stable
individual differences across images in human saccadic eye movements. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 1–14
Chauvin, A., Worsley, K. J., Schyns, P. G., Arguin, M., &Gosselin, F. (2005). Accurate statistical tests forsmooth classification images. Journal of Vision, 5(9):1,
659–667, http://www.journalofvision.org/content/5/9/1,
doi:10.1167/5.9.1. [PubMed] [Article]
Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (2005).
Cultural variation in eye movements during scene
perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 102,
12629–12633.
Cornelissen, F. W., Bruin, K. J., & Kooijman, A. C.
(2005). The influence of artificial scotomas on eye
movements during visual search. Optometry & Visual
Science, 82, 27–35.
Cornelissen, F. W., Peters, E. M., & Palmer, J. (2002).
The Eyelink toolbox: Eye tracking with MATLAB
and the psychophysics toolbox. Behavioral
Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 34,
613–617.
Cristino, F., Mathôt, S., Theeuwes, J., & Gilchrist, I. D.
(in press). ScanMatch: A novel method for comparing
fixation sequences. Behaviour Research Methods.
Available at http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~psidg/ScanMatch/.
Davidoff, J., Fonteneau, E., & Fagot, J. (2008). Local andglobal processing: Observations from a remote culture. Cognition, 108, 702–709.
Evans, K., Rotello, C. M., Li, X., & Rayner, K. (2009).
Scene perception and memory revealed by eye
movements and ROC analyses: Does a culturaldifference truly exist? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 276–285.
Fine, E. M., & Rubin, G. S. (1999). Reading with central
field loss: Number of letters masked is more important

17

than the size of the mask in degrees. Vision Research,
39, 747–756.
Gosselin, F., & Schyns, P. G. (2001). Bubbles: A
technique to reveal the use of information inrecognition. Vision Research, 41, 2261–2271.
Henderson, J. M., McClure, K., Pierce, S., & Schrock, G.
(1997). Object identification without foveal vision:
Evidence from an artificial scotoma paradigm. Perception & Psychophysics, 59, 323–346.
Hoffman, J. E., & Subramaniam, B. (1995). The role ofvisual attention in saccadic eye movements. Perception & Psychophysics, 57, 787–795.
Jack, R. E., Blais, C., Scheepers, C., Schyns, P. G., &Caldara, R. (2009). Cultural confusions show facial
expressions are not universal. Current Biology, 19,1543–1548.
Kelly, D. J., Miellet, S., & Caldara, R. (2010). Culture
shapes eye movements for visually homogeneous
objects. Frontiers in Psychology, 1, 1–7.
Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context
sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922–934.
Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2006).
Culture and the physical environment. Holistic versus
analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17, 113–119.
Murphy, K. S., & Foley-Fisher, J. A. (1989). Effect of a
scotoma on eye movements during visual search.
Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 9, 317–321.
Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2003). Culture and point ofview. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 100,11163–11170.
Nisbett, R. E., & Miyamoto, Y. (2005). The influence of
culture: Holistic versus analytic perception. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 9, 467–473.
Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., Kim, B., & Nisbett, R. E.
(2002). Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26, 653–684.
Posner, M. I. (1980). Orienting of attention. The Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32, 3–25.
Rayner, K., & Bertera, J. H. (1979). Reading without afovea. Science, 206, 468.
Rayner, K., Castelhano, M. S., & Yang, J. (2009).
Viewing task influences eye movements during active
scene perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 35, 254–259.
Rayner, K., Inhoff, A. W., Morrison, R., Slowiaczek, M. L.,& Bertera, J. H. (1981). Masking of foveal andparafoveal vision during eye fixations in reading.

Journal of Vision (2010) 10(6):21, 1–18

Miellet et al.

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7, 167–179.
Rayner, K., Li, X., Williams, C. C., Cave, K. R., & Well,
A. D. (2007). Eye movements during information
processing tasks: Individual differences and culturaleffects. Vision Research, 47, 2714–2726.
Remington, R. W. (1980). Attention and saccadic eye
movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Human Perception and Performance, 6, 726–744.
[PubMed]
Shepherd, M., Findlay, J. M., & Hockey, R. J. (1986). The
relationship between eye movements and spatialattention. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A, 38, 475–491.
Timberlake, G. T., Mainster, M. A., Peli, E., Augliere,
R. A., Essock, E. A., & Arend, L. A. (1986). Readingwith a macular scotoma: I. Retinal locus of scotoma
and fixation area. Investigative Ophthalmology &Visual Science, 27, 1137–1147.
Torralba, A., Oliva, A., Castelhano, M. S., & Henderson,
J. M. (2006). Contextual guidance of eye movements

18

and attention in real-world scenes: The role of globalfeatures in object search. Psychological Review, 113,
766–786.
Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
van Diepen, P. M., & d’Ydewalle, G. (2003). Early
peripheral and foveal processing in fixations during
scene perception. Visual Cognition, 10, 79–100.
van Diepen, P. M., Ruelens, L., & d’Ydewalle, G. (1999).
Brief foveal masking during scene perception. Acta
Psychologica, 101, 91–103.
van Diepen, P. M. J. (2001). Foveal stimulus degradation
during scene perception. In F. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in psychology research (vol. 2, pp. 89–115). NY:
Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
van Diepen, P. M. J., De Graef, P., & d’Ydewalle, G.
(1995). Chronometry of foveal information extraction
during scene perception. In J. M. Findlay, R. Walker,& R. W. Kentridge (Eds.), Eye movement research:
Mechanisms, processes and applications (pp. 349–362).
Amsterdam: Elsevier.