University of Latvia Invites to a lecture: Studying memory processes in realistic visual contexts through EEG-eye movement coregistration

Time: Monday, Oct 9, 14:30-16:00,
Place: University of Latvia, Faculty of Computing, Rainis boulevard 19, Room 13

 
Contemporary experimental psychology is shifting away from constrained laboratory conditions toward tasks that better mimic real-world scenarios. Traditional laboratory experiments often present stimuli in a single location on the screen that is fixed during the experiment. This precludes active vision, i.e., the intimate involvement of eye movements in brain processes underlying perception, attention, and memory. In recent years, the tight connection between the neural mechanisms of eye movement control and memory has become increasingly apparent. Eye movements not simply supply memory with information by visually sampling objects, but also organize interrelated visual features in space and time. My research focuses on the neural correlates of memory processes that unfold in naturalistic viewing situations and in real time. However, studying the neural mechanisms of memory during natural viewing is challenging because of the intricate effects of sequential eye movements on ongoing brain activity. To address this problem, I use a methodology that combines electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking recordings while participants perform free-viewing tasks.
In my talk, I will commence with an overview of the methodological aspects of EEG-eye movement coregistration in free viewing. I will discuss the remarkable sensitivity of EEG-eye movement coregistration to diverse psychological states and brain states, underscoring its utility for addressing various questions in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Then I will move on to its application to memory research. First, I will elucidate the interaction of attention and eye movements in short-term memory encoding. Then I will focus on the neural mechanisms of refixations, i.e., the return of gaze to previously visited locations. Refixations compensate for memory loss during sustained visual exploration, as well as support successful memory formation in natural viewing. The final part of the talk will be devoted to long-term, episodic memory. I will describe how mental representations of episodic events build up during encoding with unrestricted eye movements.