Huge thanks to my brilliant supervisor Tobias Staudigl (@tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social) for his guidance and support, to our amazing collaborators (Tzvetan Popov, Tara Beilner @tafgmcb.bsky.social, and others at LMU Munich), and to the participants and patients who took part in the study!
(7/7)

✅ In sum, our findings show that neglecting eye movements leads to an incomplete understanding of the alpha/beta subsequent memory effect. We advocate for new perspectives on interpreting the alpha/beta SME and on the function of alpha/beta activity in general (6/7).

📌 We also show that eye movements shape alpha/beta activity on a moment-to-moment basis and alpha/beta amplitude reductions can be explained by accumulated eye movements.

Here’s Experiment 1 as an example (5/7):

📌 By manipulating eye movements, we provide causal insights that eye movements drive alpha/beta power reductions (4/7).

📌 When participants attempted fixation, the alpha/beta subsequent memory effect disappeared, while visual exploration continued to modulate alpha/beta power (3/7).

📌 The degree of visual exploration was the consistent and robust modulator of alpha/beta power reductions.

The figure below shows this in Experiment 1 during free viewing. Check out the preprint for consistent findings across all 4 experiments (2/7).