Eye tracking
From EuroVR Knowledge Base
Description
Eye tracking systems can be used in VEs to capture and record the user’s actions and responses to specific visual stimuli. Eye trackers can be used to monitor how factors such as motion in a VE attracts attention, what users are looking at when they are navigating or manipulating objects, the amount of time users spend looking at objects, the time spent looking back and forth between objects etc. This quantitative information could be used to improve object positioning in a VE which, depending on the application and task, could potentially reduce error and eye fatigue. In addition to pupil position and eye movements, eye tracking systems also provide information about pupil diameter. Change in pupil diameter (and frequency of this change) can provide information about the brightness and contrast of a VR system; rapid changes in light intensity may be associated with eye discomfort, and VR/VE systems can be changed accordingly to reduce discomfort (Gabbard et al., 1999). Eye tracking measures fall into two categories: spatial and temporal (Goldberg & Kotval, 1999). Spatial measures are, for example, amplitude of saccades and scanpath length. Temporal measures include fixation duration, fixation number, and scanpath duration.
Primary Reference or Source
- Laarni, J., Ravaja, N., & Saari, T. (2003). Using eye tracking and psychophysiological methods to study spatial presence. In Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Presence. Aalborg, Denmark, 6-8 October 2003.
