Assessing anticipatory saccades towards the future consequences of one's actions via online eye tracking

Kurzfassung/Abstract

When an action yields a certain effect, we form bi-directional action-effect associations that allow us to anticipate both the location and timing of our actions' effects. This can be observed through anticipatory eye movements towards future effect location (proactive effect monitoring). Moreover, participants performed anticipatory eye movements earlier when the effect's delay was short rather than long (200/800ms). To assess whether anticipatory eye movements could also be reliably investigated using online eye tracking via participants' individual webcams, we developed an online experiment where a correct response contingently led to a spatially compatible (left response > effect on the left) or incompatible (left response > effect on the right) visual effect presented after a predictable short/long delay. Replicating offline experiments, we found that participants performed their anticipatory eye movements towards the effect earlier for short rather than long effect delays. Simultaneously and in contrast to prior studies, however, participants only anticipatorily looked towards the future effect of their actions (significantly but barely) above chance on compatible but not incompatible trials. Interestingly, participants' responses to post-experiment questions suggested that they intentionally focused more onto the middle of the screen where the targets appeared and tried to intentionally inhibit eye movements to the sides to optimize their performance. Following experiments will have to assess the influence of effect relevance on participants' strategies and eye movement patterns. Concluding, we demonstrate that anticipatory eye movements reflecting a time-sensitive proactive effect monitoring process can reliably be assessed offline as well as online.