Two experiments investigated what eye movements can reveal about how we process surprising information and how we update mental models in dynamic and unstructured environments. Participants made saccades to visual targets presented one at a time, radially, around an invisible perimeter. Target locations were normally distributed and shifted at an unannounced point during the task. Trials following the shift were considered surprising and unexpected. These unexpected and surprising events prompted the need to update. Slower saccadic latencies were observed for surprising/unexpected events, perhaps indicative of the need to reorient attention to the unexpected target location. Longer dwell times were observed for events that signaled a change in the distribution. These data show that eye movement metrics provide a reliable indicator of mental model updating when contingencies change even in the absence of explicit change signals.

两项实验调查了眼球运动可以揭示我们如何处理令人惊讶的信息以及我们如何在动态和非结构化环境中更新心理模型。参与者对视觉目标进行扫视，每次呈现一个，径向地，围绕一个不可见的周边。目标位置是正常分布的，并在任务期间在一个未通知的点移动。转变之后的试验被认为是令人惊讶和出乎意料的。这些意想不到和令人惊讶的事件促使需要更新。对于意外/意外事件，观察到较慢的扫视延迟，这可能表明需要将注意力重新定向到意外目标位置。对于表明分布发生变化的事件，观察到更长的停留时间。