Abstract
A photographic image of a dental unit(the unit) was shown to child subjects, who knew little about the unit, and the way they looked at it was carefully observed. With the aid of a Visicon Eyecamera, their eye movements were measured and the data thus obtained were analyzed. Our findings were as follows.
1. A check of the records of which part of the unit they fixed their eyes on first and foremost, the movement of their eyes before getting to the initial fixation points, and the frequency and duration of pauses in the eye movement suggested that they had not perceived the unit as a whole but had recognized the table, light and chair constituting part of the whole as being separate things.
2. The distribution of all the fixation points of the eyes showed the possibility that they saw each component of the unit a little larger than what it really is. This is probably because they sized up the object on the basis of their small build.
3. Their eyes jumped back and forth from the table to the lighting and the chair in a small saccadic movement. In a large saccadic movement of eyes, they looked at the unit and its background.
4. A very few of the child subjects scanned their eyes in any particular order. Most of them darted their eyes at random.
5. There was a strong tendency for the children to look up, probably because it a habitual reaction. It would be difficult for us to gather much information from their eyes as their field of vision was often blocked in depth.
