Scene and screen center bias early eye movements in scene viewing

In laboratory studies of visual perception, images of natural scenes are routinely presented on a computer screen. Under these conditions, observers look at the center of scenes first, which might reflect an advantageous viewing position for extracting visual information. This study examined an alternative possibility, namely that initial eye movements are drawn towards the center of the screen. Observers searched visual scenes in a person detection task, while the scenes were aligned with the screen center or offset horizontally (Experiment 1). Two central viewing effects were observed, reflecting early visual biases to the scene and the screen center. The scene effect was modified by person content but is not specific to person detection tasks, while the screen bias cannot be explained by the low-level salience of a computer display (Experiment 2). These findings support the notion of a central viewing tendency in scene analysis, but also demonstrate a bias to the screen center that forms a potential artifact in visual perception experiments.

Research highlights► In scene viewing, observers look at the center of a scene first. ► This behavior reflects two separable effects - a bias to look at the scene center and a bias to the screen center. ► The screen bias is an artifact that arises in visual perception experiments in laboratory settings.