05.06.2025 Even seeing needs to be learned

Eye movements develop into young adulthood - results of the citizen science study at the Mathematikum in Giessen

With the temporary exhibit “Millions of Moments”, the perception researchers at the Mathematikum in Giessen were able to collect thousands of pieces of data.

People don't just look at their surroundings at random: when we look at an everyday scene, we move our eyes several times per second to take in different details. Certain areas - such as faces or text elements - particularly attract our attention. But how does this gaze behavior develop? And when is it “mature”? Until now, researchers have assumed that the development of typical eye movement patterns is already complete by primary school age. A new study by Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU), in which thousands of people were involved, now shows that gaze behavior develops into young adulthood. The results of the study have been published in the journal “Nature Human Behavior”.

The team led by Dr. Marcel Linka and Prof. Dr. Ben de Haas from the Department of General Psychology at JLU analyzed the eye movements of over 6,700 people between the ages of five and 72. This was made possible by a cooperation with the Mathematikum hands-on museum in Giessen: The specially developed eye-tracking station “Millions of Moments” was part of the exhibition there for over a year. Visitors were able to have their eye movements measured and “donate” the resulting data to research. In total, several million eye movements were recorded while looking at 40 everyday scenes.

This showed that children and young people explore images differently to adults. For example, younger children focus their gaze more often on hands or touched objects and less often on text elements. They also move their eyes horizontally through the image less often.  
“We were surprised that adult gaze behavior develops so slowly - over almost two decades,” says Marcel Linka, first author of the study. One possible reason for this: "Our perception changes with experience. Things we see frequently - such as books, screens or street signs - could shape the way we look."

Another result: the viewing patterns of different people become increasingly similar as they grow up. While eleven-year-olds still explore scenes in very different ways, adults are more selective about which elements they focus on. 
“How does our brain learn over the course of our lives to recognize the ‘interesting’ parts of an image and direct our eyes there?” asks Prof. de Haas. He explains: “We suspect that adults develop ‘mental maps’ for typical scenes, i.e. experience-dependent ideas about which image elements are important for understanding a scene and where they are to be expected”.

In the future, the team wants to investigate whether and how the viewing of scenes depends on cultural experience, for example, or is suitable for diagnosing special visual and learning requirements. “If we know how the gaze changes over the years, we can better assess what children need to understand the world,” says de Haas.

The team is part of the recently approved Cluster of Excellence TAM - The Adaptive Mind, in which universal principles of adaptability and perception are investigated under the leadership of JLU.

For prospective students who would like to delve deeper into perception research, JLU offers the English-language Master's program Mind, Brain and Behavior as part of its research-oriented teaching.

Publication
Linka, M., Karimpur, H. & de Haas, B. Protracted development of gaze behaviour. Nat Hum Behav (2025). 
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02191-9 

Further information
www.theadaptivemind.de – Exzellenzcluster TAM – The Adaptive Mind
www.uni-giessen.de/de/studium/studienangebot/master/mbb - Master-Studiengang Mind, Brain and Behavior