Yarbus, eye movements, and vision

Benjamin W Tatler

School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, UK

Nicholas J Wade

School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, UK

Hoi Kwan

School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, UK

John M Findlay

Department of Psychology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

Boris M Velichkovsky

Institute of Cognitive Studies, Kurchatov Research Centre, 123182 Moscow, Russia

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Abstract. The impact of Yarbus’s research on eye movements was enormous following the translation of his book Eye Movements and Vision into English in 1967. In stark contrast, the published material in English concerning his life is scant. We provide a brief biography of Yarbus and assess his impact on contemporary approaches to research on eye movements. While early interest in his work focused on his study of stabilised retinal images, more recently this has been replaced with interest in his work on the cognitive influences on scanning patterns. We extended his experiment on the effect of instructions on viewing a picture using a portrait of Yarbus rather than a painting. The results obtained broadly supported those found by Yarbus.


Cite as: Tatler B W, Wade N J, Kwan H, Findlay J M, Velichkovsky B M, 2010, "Yarbus, eye movements, and vision" i-Perception 1(1) 7–27
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History: 1 March 2010, in revised form 4 June 2010; published online 12 July 2010

DOI: 10.1068/i0382

ISSN: 2041-6695 (electronic only)

Copyright: Copyright is retained by the author(s) of this article. This open-access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Licence, which permits noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original author(s) and source are credited and no alterations are made.
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