Gaze Behavior Reveals Expectations of Potential Scene Changes

Even if the scene before our eyes remains static for some time, we might explore it differently compared to static images, which are commonly used in studies on visual attention. We show experimentally that the top-down expectation of changes in natural scenes causes clearly distinguishable gaze behavior for visually identical scenes. We present free-viewing eye-tracking data of 20 healthy adults on a new video dataset of natural scenes, each mapped for its "potential for change" in independent ratings. Observers looked significantly more often at parts of the scene with a high potential for change when looking at frozen videos compared to static images, with substantially higher inter-observer coherence. This viewing difference peaked right before a potential movement onset. Established concepts like object animacy or salience alone could not explain this finding. Images thus conceal experience-based expectations that affect gaze behavior in the potentially dynamic real world.