| Abstract [eng] |
There is much that is unknown about how different domains of cognitive processing manifest in people and how stable these features are both inter- and interpersonally. The primary goal of this exploratory study was to determine whether individuals display relative consistency of visual exploration tendencies across different cognitive reasoning and aesthetic viewing tasks, and how these tendencies are linked to problem-solving performance and strategy selection. Twenty-four participants completed three experimental tasks: a three-dimensional mental rotation task, a matrix reasoning task, and a free-viewing aesthetic task involving 10 different styles of paintings. Eye movements were tracked with an infrared corneal reflection eye-tracking system, the EyeLink1000. Fixation duration, saccade amplitude, fixation spread, proportional attention allocation to areas of interest (AOIs), response times, and performance efficiency were analyzed to group participants into visual exploration strategy profiles. It was discovered that gaze organization substantially differed between tasks: free-viewing painting has elicited the longest fixations, while cognitive tasks like mental-rotation showed overall broader exploration patterns, especially larger saccades. Some crosstalk stability was observed at an individual level, especially exploration spread and strategic choices, leading to interpretations of innate characteristics that could persist despite a change in task demands. Three novel strategic profiles were found by means of clustering for every task. They were named and defined, each showing a signature behavioral characteristic as well as an association with different success and efficiency tendencies. The results add merit to eye movements being not only mnemonic attention signatures but also a reflection of broader cognitive processing in real time. Some of the attentional tendencies do persist across domains, even suggesting a trait-like structure. Overall, eye tracking has proved to be useful for studying features of fluid intelligence and aesthetic viewing together. |
