Visibility holds great meaning, but do we really understand everything that “visibility” implies as a social, symbolic and cognitive process? The article newly published in the Journal of Archaeological Science Science details how these processes relate, and how archaeology contributes to the discussions.Issues of visuality and perception have been treated by many disciplines but an accurate account of the form and rationale of interaction between social, stylistic and cognitive changes is difficulted by the divide between these disciplines. Whereas Humanities have treated the topic in a reflexive and speculative manner, the “hard” sciences that would hold the data lack precisely this reflectiveness. Amidst this opposition, this paper proposes a reliable empirical methodology to deal with cognitive matters in archaeology. In this new article, an archaeometric-cognitive approach to material culture is proposed. This approach can enhance our knowledge of visual perception, which occurs in the brain involving high-level cognitive functions. In this research, the discipline of archaeology permits the posing of the question how material culture affects or even produces visuality and introducing historical depth in this neuro- and cognitive research.Nowadays it is more and more accepted that physical world is no longer envisioned as an external setting of human history, but instead as a medium that interacts with social and individual histories. Objects hold a function that goes beyond being a mere instrument, they are embodied in humanity itself and modify their environmentReductionist dualities such as brain-body or mind-brain are sought to be overcome here. At the same time cognitive sciences now assert that the brain and the body are extended in instruments and therefore extend into the world (Dunbar et al., 2010). As we can conclude that material culture is something that embodies human action and materializes the human mind, the cognitive mechanisms of (visual) perception permit the identifying of relationships between mind, world and matter.This paper presents a study of visual perception through the application of eye-tracking of prehistoric ceramics. This research was first presented in Criado-Boado et al. 2019. The article that has been published now complements this, as it further details the methodologic and technical issues of this research and aims to address the possibilities of a synergic alliance between archaeology and cognitive sciences. Moreover, eye-tracking is established as a useful tool in archaeometric research, contributing to the social dimension (in a “social archaeometry”, Martinón-Torres, 2008).The fundamental research questions treated in this paper are:Is there any chance to approach the visuality of material culture from an archaeometric perspective? How could an archaeometric-cognitive approach to material culture enhance our knowledge of visual perception? And what can we learn about material culture, the processes of materialization, human life and the mind itself?In order to understand the approach, it is necessary to start by stating that eyes never stay still. For this research the rapid eye movements (so-called saccades) from one fixation point to the next were studied. Whereas the processing of visual information mainly occurs during fixations on salient areas, during saccades, the brain blocks visual processing to prevent the visual gap in perception (Martinez-Conde et al. 2004). The quantitative analysis of saccades and their angles turns out to hold important information regarding the visual exploration of an image.For this study of visual exploration, Galician (NW Iberia) pottery from prehistory and protohistory was used. This was elected as a suitable medium as it embraces a significant timespan and covers a variety of socio-cultural forms, from simple communities based on the house and the family which are relatively egalitarian and building communitarian, through to social formations based on hierarchisation, ranked societies, warriorship, aristocracy and finally complex proto-states social formations (Parcero-Oubiña and Criado-Boado, 2013). In the experiment the visual and perceptual reactions of a vast number of experimental participants to this material culture were recorded. The results of this study indicate that through time there are significant changes in how visual perception operates. A gradual transition from a visual behaviour can be observed: firstly a simple horizontal gaze predominated, later shifting to a more robust horizontal-linear gaze and finally to a gradually vertical and finally hierarchized gaze. These changes through material styles correlate with social complexity, and with the main features of each socio-cultural formation, in the sense that, whenever a society becomes more complex, a bigger verticalization of the visual patterns of its objects come into existence. These ways of looking at material culture are compatible with the ways of gazing that are used in other human phenomena and codes, from architecture to the social landscape. These, and other results, confirm that differential patterns of visual response by observers are determined by the material characteristics of each ceramic style.This research, and the establishing of eye-tracking analysis as an archaeometric facility, contributes not only to archaeology, but also other disciplines such as the social history of thought and visual cognition studies regarding the comprehension of material culture. The visual response of experimental participants provides meaningful insights on how the agency of material culture operates and how the mind is engaged with materiality. This article introducing a new methodology is but the beginning. With the current ERC Synergy Grant for the XSCAPE project, based at the INCIPIT, CSIC in Santiago de Compostela (project partners are the University of Kiel (CAU), University of Sussex and the CSIC Institute of Neurosciences in Alicante), exploring this topic further, many more publications are to be expected in the coming years!Criado-Boado, F. Alonso-Pablos., D, Blanco, M.J., Porto, Y., Rodríguez-Paz, A., Cabrejas, E., Del Barrio-Alvarez, E., Martínez, L.M., 2019. Coevolution of visual behavior, the material world and social complexity, depicted by the eye-tracking of archaeological objects in humans. Scientific Reports 9 (1): 3985. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-39661-w.Dunbar, R.I.M., Gamble C., Gowlett J.A.J. (Eds.), 2010. Social Brain, Distributed Mind. Proceedings of the British Academy. 158. Martinez-Conde, S., Macknik, S.L., Hubel, D.H., 2004. The role of fixational eye movements in visual perception. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5(3), 229-40. doi: 10.1038/nrn1348.Martinón-Torres, M., 2008. Why Should Archaeologists Take History and Science Seriously? In: Martinón-Torres, M., Rehren, T. (Eds.) Archaeology, History and Science. Integrating Approaches to Ancient Materials, Walnut Creek, pp.15-36. Parcero-Oubiña, C., Criado-Boado, F., 2013. Social change, Social resistance. “A long-term approach to the processes of transformation of social landscapes in the NW Iberian Peninsula”. In: Berrocal M. C., García Sanjuán, L., Gilman, A. (Eds.). The Prehistory of Iberia: Debating Early Social Stratification and the State, Routledge, London, pp. 249-266.