ABSTRACT
When we read, search for a target, or simply look around the world, our visual input comes to us in discrete units. While the flow of visual information appears to us to be continuous, it is easy to show that people move their gaze from one place to another discontinuously. The experiments reported here are directed at the general question of how visual information processing is synchronized with this discontinuous visual input. More specifically, they have investigated how the duration of individual fixations is controlled during search. It is clear that two broad classes of factors affect fixation duration: both stimulus factors - for example, stimulus clarity, novelty, etc. - and oculomotor factors - for example, the minimum time it takes for a saccade to be initiated - will contribute to the control of the duration of fIXations.
