10.57892/100-108Scholtus, LizzieLizzieScholtus0000-0001-8627-8991XSCAPE: Material Minds: Exploring the Interactions between Predictive Brains, Cultural Artifacts, and Embodied Visual Search (ERC 951631)Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology (Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte), Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)Vindrola-Padrós, BrunoBrunoVindrola-Padrós0000-0003-1616-423XXSCAPE: Material Minds: Exploring the Interactions between Predictive Brains, Cultural Artifacts, and Embodied Visual Search (ERC 951631)Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology (Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte), Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)Kiel University2026930Kiel University2026-04-07enresearch_datahttps://opendata.uni-kiel.de/receive/fdr_mods_00000108fdr_mods_00000108https://opendata.uni-kiel.de/receive/fdr_mods_00000108?XSL.Transformer=modsAttribution 4.0This folder contains all the scripts and data used to carry out the eye-tracking analysis of the paper On the evolution of visual patterns of attention in pre- and proto-historic central Germany: An eye-tracking study on pottery styles. The README file explains the folder structure and the file composition as well as the content of the scripts and tables. Paper abstract: Stylistic variation has been a central concern in the study of prehistoric pottery in central Europe. The variation of ceramic styles has been often described within a typo-chronological framework, which is the base for further explanations and interpretations: temporal and spatial scales of cultural identities, changing technologies, shifting social boundaries, among others. In this paper we approach stylistic variation from a visual cognition perspective, by focusing on the effects that stylistic attributes (i.e. visual properties) of vessels have on human patterns of attention. Towards this end, a free-viewing experiment was conducted at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) using 41 pottery vessels that span from the year 5500 to 1 BC, i.e. from the start of the Neolithic to the Late Iron Age. We used eye-tracking to analyse fixation locations and durations, along with pupillometry to assess cognitive load. We found that participants primarily focused on decorative patterns, with pottery from the Early Neolithic period receiving the most visual attention. The results suggest, on the one hand, a variation in attention associated with specific socio-cultural changes in prehistoric societies, and, on the other hand, that in general pottery styles might become less captivating or attention-grabbing during the last five thousand years of prehistory. We argue that shifts in the production, distribution and consumption of pottery as a medium of symbolic expression are linked to changes in different social spheres (e.g. economic, ritual, socio-political). A feedback mechanism was established between pottery and its visual cognitive effects, leading to changes in the patterns of attention towards pottery designs between and within socio-cultural formations in central German prehistory, so-called perception phases. Our results also reveal a loss of interest in pottery at the end of late prehistory, leading to a shift of attention towards other crafts and specific social spheres.