Looking at Nothing, Seeing Something: Mental Imagery Vividness Shapes Eye-Movement Replay During Episodic Memory Recall
(2026) PSYP01 20251Department of Psychology
- Abstract
- During episodic memory retrieval, individuals often direct their gaze toward the spatial locations where visual stimuli previously appeared; a phenomenon known as the “looking at nothing” effect. While eye movements during recall have been proposed to support memory reconstruction, it remains unclear how their functional role varies across mental imagery vividness. Participants (n = 62) completed cognitive style (OSIVQ) and mental imagery vividness (VVIQ) questionnaires before undergoing a blank screen memory paradigm in which naturalistic scenes and object arrangement stimuli were encoded and later recalled under unrestricted (free eye movements) and restricted (central fixation) conditions. During recall, participants mentally... (More)
- During episodic memory retrieval, individuals often direct their gaze toward the spatial locations where visual stimuli previously appeared; a phenomenon known as the “looking at nothing” effect. While eye movements during recall have been proposed to support memory reconstruction, it remains unclear how their functional role varies across mental imagery vividness. Participants (n = 62) completed cognitive style (OSIVQ) and mental imagery vividness (VVIQ) questionnaires before undergoing a blank screen memory paradigm in which naturalistic scenes and object arrangement stimuli were encoded and later recalled under unrestricted (free eye movements) and restricted (central fixation) conditions. During recall, participants mentally reconstructed each image, provided subjective memory ratings, and provided a verbal description from memory. Results demonstrated that the effect of eye-movement restriction on gaze dispersion and fixation frequency depended on imagery vividness and stimulus type. Unrestricted recall strengthened the link between encoding quality and memory, particularly for individuals with medium and low imagery vividness. Additionally, gaze dispersion and fixation behaviour showed systematic, imagery-dependent associations with both subjective memory and reported content. Furthermore, analyses of scanpath similarity revealed that the relationship between gaze reinstatement and memory differed across imagery profiles. These novel findings indicate that mental imagery vividness systematically modulates the relationship between eye movements and episodic memory retrieval, refining existing accounts of gaze reinstatement by demonstrating substantial individual variability in gaze–memory associations. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9222340
- author
- Brewer, Sylvana LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- PSYP01 20251
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- mental imagery, episodic memory, eye movements, gaze reinstatement, spatial memory, object memory, aphantasia, hyperphantasia
- language
- English
- id
- 9222340
- date added to LUP
- 2026-02-09 16:56:31
- date last changed
- 2026-02-09 16:56:31
@misc{9222340,
abstract = {{During episodic memory retrieval, individuals often direct their gaze toward the spatial locations where visual stimuli previously appeared; a phenomenon known as the “looking at nothing” effect. While eye movements during recall have been proposed to support memory reconstruction, it remains unclear how their functional role varies across mental imagery vividness. Participants (n = 62) completed cognitive style (OSIVQ) and mental imagery vividness (VVIQ) questionnaires before undergoing a blank screen memory paradigm in which naturalistic scenes and object arrangement stimuli were encoded and later recalled under unrestricted (free eye movements) and restricted (central fixation) conditions. During recall, participants mentally reconstructed each image, provided subjective memory ratings, and provided a verbal description from memory. Results demonstrated that the effect of eye-movement restriction on gaze dispersion and fixation frequency depended on imagery vividness and stimulus type. Unrestricted recall strengthened the link between encoding quality and memory, particularly for individuals with medium and low imagery vividness. Additionally, gaze dispersion and fixation behaviour showed systematic, imagery-dependent associations with both subjective memory and reported content. Furthermore, analyses of scanpath similarity revealed that the relationship between gaze reinstatement and memory differed across imagery profiles. These novel findings indicate that mental imagery vividness systematically modulates the relationship between eye movements and episodic memory retrieval, refining existing accounts of gaze reinstatement by demonstrating substantial individual variability in gaze–memory associations.}},
author = {{Brewer, Sylvana}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Looking at Nothing, Seeing Something: Mental Imagery Vividness Shapes Eye-Movement Replay During Episodic Memory Recall}},
year = {{2026}},
}