Human gaze behaviors track abstract stimulus categories

Working memory (WM) enables transient sensory experiences to be maintained and transformed into goal-directed behaviors. Neural and behavioral evidence suggests that the oculomotor system contributes to WM, with recent studies showing that the physical properties of remembered items—such as their location or orientation—can be decoded from subtle variations in gaze position. However, it remains unclear whether eye movements also reflect the meaning or behavioral relevance of remembered stimuli. Here, we show that human gaze behavior encodes abstract categorical information independent of physical stimulus features. In three experiments, participants learned to classify oriented stimuli according to an arbitrary rule while their eye movements were recorded. Category identity could be reliably decoded records of gaze position, particularly on trials with accurate categorization. Control experiments confirmed that these effects were not driven by low-level visual or motor factors. These findings reveal that human oculomotor behavior tracks the abstract decision state of the observer, linking eye movements to the representation of meaning rather than mere sensory rehearsal.