ABSTRACT
This chapter re-evaluates the role of saccades and fixations during recognition, not from the standpoint of challenging their normal occurrence, but as a challenge to assumptions about the essential nature of the fixation/saccadic sequences to the recognition process. Stark and Ellis provide a very elaborate explanation of the qualitative role of the saccade/fixation sequence. In their view, eye movements are controlled by cognitive models already present in the brain and although each individual provides their own preferred order of searching, that order remains quite consistent between pictures or when making different observations on subsequent presentations of the same picture. The measurement technique and algorithm determine the accuracy and precision of eye movement measurement, but the frequent occurrence of what appears to be a completely idiosyncratic, unrepeatable eye movement pattern delimits the availability of the appropriate models to describe the data.
