Individual differences in eye movements dynamics of free viewing conscious and unconscious naturalistic scenes
Abstract
Different individuals produce different gaze patterns while exploring the world. Here we examined whether these differences occur also when viewing a scene unconsciously. We reanalyzed the data collected in Lublinsky et al., 2025, looking for two types of individual differences; content-based individual differences, which depend on the visual stimulus presented, and content-free individual differences, which do not relate to the observed stimuli. In two experiments, 52 participants viewed scenes consciously and unconsciously, rendered invisible via Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS). We found reliable content-based individual differences in the conscious condition only, suggesting that unconscious processing of scenes does not evoke consistent patterns within individuals. On the other hand, we found consistent content-free individual differences in both visibility conditions. In the unconscious condition, these most likely reflect consistent gazing patterns on the CFS stimulation (i.e., the changing color patches). Yet these content-free measures showed differential strength for seen vs. unseen trials, thereby validating participants' subjective reports. These findings provides novel means to support a dissociation between conscious and unconscious processing under CFS, which is notoriously difficult due to methodological challenges.
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BibTeX
@misc{lublinsky2026individual,
title = {{Individual differences in eye movements dynamics of free viewing conscious and unconscious naturalistic scenes}},
author = {Shaked Lublinsky and Yoni Pertzov lab and Shlomit Yuval-Greenberg and Liad Mudrik},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/gf6sm_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gf6sm_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Individual differences in eye movements dynamics of free viewing conscious and unconscious naturalistic scenes
AU - Shaked Lublinsky
AU - Yoni Pertzov lab
AU - Shlomit Yuval-Greenberg
AU - Liad Mudrik
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/gf6sm_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gf6sm_v1/
AB - Different individuals produce different gaze patterns while exploring the world. Here we examined whether these differences occur also when viewing a scene unconsciously. We reanalyzed the data collected in Lublinsky et al., 2025, looking for two types of individual differences; content-based individual differences, which depend on the visual stimulus presented, and content-free individual differences, which do not relate to the observed stimuli. In two experiments, 52 participants viewed scenes consciously and unconsciously, rendered invisible via Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS). We found reliable content-based individual differences in the conscious condition only, suggesting that unconscious processing of scenes does not evoke consistent patterns within individuals. On the other hand, we found consistent content-free individual differences in both visibility conditions. In the unconscious condition, these most likely reflect consistent gazing patterns on the CFS stimulation (i.e., the changing color patches). Yet these content-free measures showed differential strength for seen vs. unseen trials, thereby validating participants' subjective reports. These findings provides novel means to support a dissociation between conscious and unconscious processing under CFS, which is notoriously difficult due to methodological challenges.
ER -