Stimulus-dependent eye movements have been recognized as a potential confound in decoding visual working memory information from neural signals. Here we combined eye-tracking with representational geometry analyses to uncover the information in miniature gaze patterns while participants (n = 41) were cued to maintain visual object orientations. Although participants were discouraged from breaking fixation by means of real-time feedback, small gaze shifts (<1°) robustly encoded the to-be-maintained stimulus orientation, with evidence for encoding two sequentially presented orientations at the same time. The orientation encoding on stimulus presentation was object-specific, but it changed to a more object-independent format during cued maintenance, particularly when attention had been temporarily withdrawn from the memorandum. Finally, categorical reporting biases increased after unattended storage, with indications of biased gaze geometries already emerging during the maintenance periods before behavioural reporting. These findings disclose a wealth of information in gaze patterns during visuospatial working memory and indicate systematic changes in representational format when memory contents have been unattended.

刺激依赖性眼球运动已被认为是从神经信号中解码视觉工作记忆信息的潜在混杂因素。在这里，我们将眼球追踪与具象几何分析相结合，以揭示微型凝视模式中的信息，同时提示参与者 ( n = 41) 保持视觉对象方向。尽管不鼓励参与者通过实时反馈打破固定，但小的注视移动（<1°）有力地编码了要维持的刺激方向，有证据表明同时编码了两个顺序呈现的方向。刺激呈现的方向编码是特定于对象的，但在提示维护期间，特别是当注意力暂时从备忘录中撤回时，它会变成更独立于对象的格式。最后，无人值守存储后，分类报告偏差增加，在行为报告之前的维护期间已经出现了有偏见的注视几何形状的迹象。这些发现揭示了视觉空间工作记忆期间凝视模式的大量信息，并表明当记忆内容无人关注时，表征格式发生系统性变化。