Visual scanning patterns of skilled archaeologists when observing pottery

Abstract

The present study examines the visual scanning patterns of experienced archaeologists in order to understand the cognitive skills involved in identifying artificial objects. Twelve participants-nine with varying levels of archaeological experiences, ranging from introductory to advanced, and three with no archaeological experience-took part in the experiment, which monitored their eye movements, using eye camera (EMR model 8), while they observed either pottery as an experimental stimulus or an industrial flower pot as a control stimulus. The results indicated the following: a) the skilled experts fixated their eyes more frequently on the general outlines of the objects than the novices and naive participants, and b) experts exhibited longer inter-fixation distances and short fixations durations than novices and naive participants. It is suggested that expert archaeologists pay greater attention to morphological features and proportional aspects when observing objects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)