Well, my idea about this is actually that we're so used to our eyes going to the top of the screen when we hear the word "menu" and regular people don't have the same associations.
I think if I went to a platform that followed a different design paradigm than I was used it, I'd have my eyes roaming all over the screen as well.
Maybe ... but my point was that even when searching for an arbitrary word on the screen, I notice that I'm significantly faster than a non-savvy user. E.g. if I'm on a call with a support desk and they're walking me through some steps on their website, I find I can easily 'take in' the entire screen and focus on that one word they want me to click on. Of course, I know a website is a bad example here, given that I could've just pressed Ctrl-F, but the idea holds for other complex non-searchable UIs too.
I think if I went to a platform that followed a different design paradigm than I was used it, I'd have my eyes roaming all over the screen as well.