Blinks are strategically coupled with head movements in unconstrained natural gaze behavior
- 1Department of Psychology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen 35396, Germany
- 2Department of Psychology, Centre for Mind, Brain and Behaviour, Universities of Marburg, Giessen and Darmstadt, Germany
- 3Center for Perceptual Systems, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
Abstract
Blinks are a ubiquitous yet largely unnoticed aspect of human vision, despite causing frequent interruptions of visual input that can amount to up to 10% of waking time. By leveraging a large dataset of unconstrained gaze behavior during two natural tasks, we found a behavioral strategy to limit the impact of blinks: blinks were strategically coupled with head movements, which minimizes information loss due to unreliable visual input during head movements. Specifically, blink probability increased with higher head velocities and showed strong temporal modulation relative to head movement onset: Blink probability was reduced before head movement initiation and then peaked during the head movement. The strength of this coupling was tailored to the individual needs of participants, with participants with higher baseline blink rates showing stronger synchronization. This indicates that blinks are a part of an individually coordinated strategy when orchestrating eye and head movements during unconstrained natural behavior.
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BibTeX
@article{goettker2026blinks,
title = {{Blinks are strategically coupled with head movements in unconstrained natural gaze behavior}},
author = {Alexander Goettker and Mary Hayhoe},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1073/pnas.2625566123},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2625566123},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Blinks are strategically coupled with head movements in unconstrained natural gaze behavior
AU - Alexander Goettker
AU - Mary Hayhoe
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/22
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2625566123
UR - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2625566123
AB - Blinks are a ubiquitous yet largely unnoticed aspect of human vision, despite causing frequent interruptions of visual input that can amount to up to 10% of waking time. By leveraging a large dataset of unconstrained gaze behavior during two natural tasks, we found a behavioral strategy to limit the impact of blinks: blinks were strategically coupled with head movements, which minimizes information loss due to unreliable visual input during head movements. Specifically, blink probability increased with higher head velocities and showed strong temporal modulation relative to head movement onset: Blink probability was reduced before head movement initiation and then peaked during the head movement. The strength of this coupling was tailored to the individual needs of participants, with participants with higher baseline blink rates showing stronger synchronization. This indicates that blinks are a part of an individually coordinated strategy when orchestrating eye and head movements during unconstrained natural behavior.
SN - 0027-8424
SN - 1091-6490
ER -