The influence of stimulus complexity, novelty, and affective value on children's visual fixations

In two experiments, motion pictures were taken of an S's eye while he viewed pairs of stimuli and it was found in both experiments that stimuli with negative affective value dominated both neutral and positive stimuli.

Abstract

In two experiments, motion pictures were taken of an S's eye while he viewed pairs of stimuli. Each pair represented two points along the continuum of either stimulus complexity, novelty, or affective value. The fixations of children were dominated by more complex or novel figures when those figures were compared with less complex or banal figures. In addition, Exp. II demonstrated the feasibility of developing stimuli to represent four points on a continuum of novelty and suggested an increasing monotonic relationship between the novelty of a stimulus and its potential for dominating fixations. In contrast to studies with college students, it was found in both experiments that stimuli with negative affective value dominated both neutral and positive stimuli.