When analyzing a scene, central and peripheral vision serve different purposes. While central visual processes are more likely to be involved in the focused mode of visual processing, peripheral visual processes are more likely to be involved in the ambient mode. While the ambient mode is in charge of understanding scene arrangement and moving across space, the focal mode collects specific data when central vision is focused on important regions of the visual field.
According to earlier research, there was a change from ambient processing, which occurred in the initial few seconds of scene viewing, to focused processing, which occurred in the later time intervals and was indicated by longer fixations and shorter saccades. For a study, researchers sought to discover how variations in eye movements and the shift from ambient to focussed processing across the time course of scene processing are influenced by changes in central and peripheral vision. Therefore, they confined the visual field to the center or the periphery while participants freely observed scenes for 20 seconds using a gaze-contingent technique.
The findings showed that compared to normal vision, fixation times were lower when vision was limited to the center. Fixations in peripheral vision lasted longer during late visual processing than fixations in central vision. They demonstrate that, even when vision was limited to just central or peripheral vision, a shift from more ambient to more focused processing would occur when viewing a scene.
Reference: arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2783821
