Journal of Eye Movement Research最新文献

Precise perception of three-dimensional (3D) images is crucial for a rewarding experience when using novel displays. However, the capability of the human visual system to perceive binocular disparities varies across the visual field meaning that depth perception might be affected by the two-dimensional (2D) layout of items on the screen. Nevertheless, potential difficulties in perceiving 3D images during free viewing have received only a little attention so far, limiting opportunities to enhance visual effectiveness of information presentation. The aim of this study was to elucidate how the 2D layout of items in 3D images impacts visual search and distribution of maintaining attention based on the analysis of the viewer's gaze. Participants were searching for a target which was projected one plane closer to the viewer compared to distractors on a multi-plane display. The 2D layout of items was manipulated by changing the item distance from the center of the display plane from 2° to 8°. As a result, the targets were identified correctly when the items were displayed close to the center of the display plane, however, the number of errors grew with an increase in distance. Moreover, correct responses were given more often when subjects paid more attention to targets compared to other items on the screen. However, a more balanced distribution of attention over time across all items was characteristic of the incorrectly completed trials. Thus, our results suggest that items should be displayed close to each other in a 2D layout to facilitate precise perception of 3D images and considering distribution of attention maintenance based on eye-tracking might be useful in the objective assessment of user experience for novel displays.

Image inversion is a powerful tool for investigating cognitive mechanisms of visual perception. However, studies have mainly used inversion in paradigms presented on twodimensional computer screens. It remains open whether disruptive effects of inversion also hold true in more naturalistic scenarios. In our study, we used scene inversion in virtual reality in combination with eye tracking to investigate the mechanisms of repeated visual search through three-dimensional immersive indoor scenes. Scene inversion affected all gaze and head measures except fixation durations and saccade amplitudes. Our behavioral results, surprisingly, did not entirely follow as hypothesized: While search efficiency dropped significantly in inverted scenes, participants did not utilize more memory as measured by search time slopes. This indicates that despite the disruption, participants did not try to compensate the increased difficulty by using more memory. Our study highlights the importance of investigating classical experimental paradigms in more naturalistic scenarios to advance research on daily human behavior.

Word search puzzles are recognized as a valid word recognition task. Eye gaze patterns have been investigated during visual search and reading, but the word search puzzle requires both searching and word recognition. This paper will discuss findings from an eye-tracking study of word search puzzles in three languages, of varying fluency for the participants. Results indicated that participants employ a search strategy that is somewhat dependent on language fluency and varies from a rigid, structured search pattern to randomly searching for a target word. The majority of gaze measurements are not significantly influenced by either word length or fluency of presented language, although mean fixation durations are longer for shorter words.

Photography is an art form where integration of the human visual perception and psychological experiences result in aesthetic pleasure. This research utilizes eye tracking to explore the impact of the properties of Gestalt in photography on people's visual cognitive process in order to understand the psychological processes and patterns of photography appreciation. This study found that images with Gestalt qualities can significantly affect fixation, sightline distribution, and subjective evaluation of aesthetics and complexity. Closure composition images seem to make cognition simpler, resulting in the least number of fixation and saccades, longer fixation duration, and more concentrated sightline indicating stronger feeling of beauty, while images which portray similarity results in the greatest fixation and saccades, longest saccade duration, and greater scattering of sightline, indicating feelings of complexity and unsightliness. The results of this research are closely related to the theories of art and design, and have reference value for photography theory and application.

Microsaccades are at the interface between basic oculomotor phenomena and complex processes of cognitive functioning, and they also have been a challenge for subtle experimentation and adequate statistical analysis. In the second part of the special thematic issue (for the first part see  4) the authors present a series of articles which demonstrate that microsaccades are still an interesting and rewarding area of scientific research the forefront of research in many areas of sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processes.. In their article "Pupillary and microsaccadic responses to cognitive effort and emotional arousal during complex decision making" Krejtz, Żurawska, Duchowski, & Wichary (1) investigate pupillary and microsaccadic responses to information processing during multi-attribute decision making under affective priming. The participants were randomly assigned into three affective priming conditions (neutral, aversive, and erotic) and instructed to make discriminative decisions. As hypothesized by the authors, the results showed microsaccadic rate inhibition and pupillary dilation, depending on cognitive effort prior to decision and moderated by affective priming. Aversive priming increased pupillary and microsaccadic responses to information processing effort. The results indicate that pupillary response is more influenced by affective priming than microsaccadic rate. The results are discussed in the light of neuropsychological mechanisms of pupillary and microsaccadic behavior. In the article "Microsaccadic rate signatures correlate under monocular and binocular stimulation conditions" Essig, Leube, Rifai, & Wahl (2020) investigate microsaccades with respect to their directional distribution and rate under monocular and binocular conditions. In both stimulation conditions participants fixated a Gabor patch presented randomly in orientation of 45° or 135° over a wide range of spatial frequencies. Microsaccades were mostly horizontally oriented regardless of the spatial frequency of the grating. This outcome was consistent between both stimulation conditions. This study found that the microsaccadic rate signature curve correlates between both stimulation conditions, therefore extending the use of microsaccades to clinical applications, since parameters as contrast sensitivity, have frequently been measured monocularly in the clinical studies. The study "Microsaccades during high speed continuous visual search" by Martin, Davis, Riesenhuber, & Thorpe (3) provides an analysis of the microsaccades occurring during visual search, targeting to small faces pasted either into cluttered background photos or into a simple gray background.  Participants were instructed to target singular 3-degree upright or inverted faces in changing scenes.  As soon as the participant's gaze reached the target face, a new face was displayed in a different random location.  Regardless of the experimental context (e.g. background scene, no background scene), o

The growing interest in evaluating the reader's comprehension leads to the search for new methods that allow such estimation in real-time (or pseudo-real-time). This can be used for more effective educational processes and to adopt textual content for various purposes. The present study used the Oken Reader eye-tracking application (60 Hz) for mass-market devices to assess reading comprehension processes. Twenty-three (23) respondents aged between 19 and 31 (mean = 24. 5, SE = 1. 4, 65% female) participated in the study. The mean, mu, and sigma parameters differed significantly depending on the level of text comprehension. This result indicates the possibility of using mass-market devices with eye-tracking technology to assess comprehension in reading. Furthermore, the study's results confirm the possibility of searching the correlations between physiological indicators such as eye movements and comprehension.

Eye movements have been used to examine the cognitive function of pilots and understand how information processing abilities impact performance. Traditional and advanced measures of gaze behaviour effectively reflect changes in cognitive load, situational awareness, and expert-novice differences. However, the extent to which gaze behaviour changes during the early stages of skill development has yet to be addressed. The current study investigated the impact of task difficulty on gaze behaviour in low-time pilots (N=18) while they completed simulated landing scenarios. An increase in task difficulty resulted in longer fixation of the runway, and a reduction in the stationary gaze entropy (gaze dispersion) and gaze transition entropy (sequence complexity). These findings suggest that pilots' gaze became less complex and more focused on fewer areas of interest when task difficulty increased. Additionally, a novel approach to identify and track instances when pilots restrict their attention outside the cockpit (i.e., gaze tunneling) was explored and shown to be sensitive to changes in task difficulty. Altogether, the gaze-related metrics used in the present study provide valuable information for assessing pilots gaze behaviour and help further understand how gaze contributes to better performance in low-time pilots.

Electrooculography (EOG) is the measurement of eye movements using surface electrodes adhered around the eye. EOG systems can be designed to have an unobtrusive form-factor that is ideal for eye tracking in free-living over long durations, but the relationship between voltage and gaze direction requires frequent re-calibration as the skin-electrode impedance and retinal adaptation vary over time. Here we propose a method for automatically calibrating the EOG-gaze relationship by fusing EOG signals with gyroscopic measurements of head movement whenever the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is active. The fusion is executed as recursive inference on a hidden Markov model that accounts for all rotational degrees-of-freedom and uncertainties simultaneously. This enables continual calibration using natural eye and head movements while minimizing the impact of sensor noise. No external devices like monitors or cameras are needed. On average, our method's gaze estimates deviate by 3.54° from those of an industry-standard desktop video-based eye tracker. Such discrepancy is on par with the latest mobile video eye trackers. Future work is focused on automatically detecting moments of VOR in free-living.

We study an individual's propensity for rational thinking; the avoidance of cognitive biases (unconscious errors generated by our mental simplification methods) using a novel augmented reality (AR) platform. Specifically, we developed an odd-one-out (OOO) game-like task in AR designed to try to induce and assess confirmatory biases. Forty students completed the AR task in the laboratory, and the short form of the comprehensive assessment of rational thinking (CART) online via the Qualtrics platform. We demonstrate that behavioural markers (based on eye, hand and head movements) can be associated (linear regression) with the short CART score - more rational thinkers have slower head and hand movements and faster gaze movements in the second more ambiguous round of the OOO task. Furthermore, short CART scores can be associated with the change in behaviour between two rounds of the OOO task (one less and one more ambiguous) - hand-eye-head coordination patterns of the more rational thinkers are more consistent in the two rounds. Overall, we demonstrate the benefits of augmenting eye-tracking recordings with additional data modalities when trying to understand complicated behaviours.