Eye movements as a tool to investigate exemplar retrieval in judgments

The retrieval of past instances stored in memory can guide inferential choices and judgments. Yet, little process-level evidence exists that would allow a similar conclusion for preferential judgments. Recent research suggests that eye movements can trace information search in memory. During retrieval, people gaze at spatial locations associated with relevant information, even if the information is no longer present (the so-called ‘looking-at-nothing’ behavior). We examined eye movements based on the looking-at-nothing behavior to explore memory retrieval in inferential and preferential judgments. In Experiment 1, participants assessed their preference for smoothies with different ingredients, while the other half gauged another person’s preference. In Experiment 2, all participants made preferential judgments with or without instructions to respond as consistently as possible. People looked at exemplar locations in both inferential and preferential judgments, and both with and without consistency instructions. Eye movements to similar training exemplars predicted test judgments but not eye movements to dissimilar exemplars. These results suggest that people retrieve exemplar information in preferential judgments but that retrieval processes are not the sole determinant of judgments.