Eye movements in scene perception while listening to slow and fast music

Abstract

To date, there is insufficient knowledge of how visual exploration of outdoor scenes may be influenced by the simultaneous processing of music. Eye movements during viewing various outdoor scenes while listening to music at either a slow or fast tempo or in silence were measured. Significantly shorter fixations were found for viewing urban scenes compared with natural scenes, but there was no interaction between the type of scene and the acoustic conditions. The results revealed shorter fixation durations in the silent control condition in the range 30 ms, compared to both music conditions but, in contrast to previous studies, these differences were non-significant. Moreover, we did not find differences in eye movements between music conditions with a slow or fast tempo. It is supposed that the type of musical stimuli, the specific tempo, the specific experimental procedure, and the engagement of participants in listening to background music while processing visual information may be important factors that influence attentional processes, which are manifested in eye-movement behavior.