ABSTRACT
In vision research, accumulating evidence suggests that the coherence of our visual experience involves not only internal representations in the brain but also the external visual environment itself. In this chapter; we discuss a collection of eye-movement experiments that lend further support for this important role of the external visual environment in visual imagery, in visual memory, as well as in linguistic memory and even in naturalistic conversation and insight problem solving. We argue that eye fixations serve as the cognitive liaisons (or “spatial indices” or “pointers”) between internal and external objects and events. Essentially, the visual environment can be treated as an additional memory database, with eye movements being the most typical method for accessing such data. The spatial indices to which eye movements interface appear to be used not just for organizing perceptual-motor routines but also for organizing relatively highlevel cognitive processes. These findings point to an externalist philosophy of mind, in which the concept of mental activity is not solely defined over neural states, but also includes peripheral bodily states, as well as objects and events in the surrounding environment.
