Remote interpreting via video-link is increasingly being employed in investigative interviews chiefly due to its apparent increased accessibility and efficiency. However, risks of miscommunication have been shown to be magnified in remote interpreting and empirical research specifically on video-link remote interpreting is in its infancy which greatly limits the evidence base available to inform and direct evidence-based policy and best practice, particularly in the identification of the optimal mode of interpreting to be used, namely consecutive and simultaneous. Consecutive interpreting refers (...) to a process in which the interpreter transfers short segments of speech from one language into the other as each person speaks in managed turn-taking, while simultaneous interpreting refers to the transfer of natural speech from one language into another in a concurrent manner without the need for speakers to segment their speech. This study provides novel empirical evidence by using eye tracking to compare the overt visual attention of interpreters working in a remote setting in which an English-speaking Interviewer interacts with a non-English-speaking Suspect in person, for whom interpretation is provided via video-link in real time. Using a within-subject design, we analyze eye-movement data from 28 professionally accredited interpreters who interpreted via video-link an investigative interview in which consecutive and simultaneous interpreting modes were counterbalanced. Taking interpreting performance into account, our results showed that, the consecutive mode yielded significantly less gaze time and therefore significantly less on-screen overt visual attention due to off-screen notetaking, an essential component of the consecutive interpreting mode. Relative to gaze time, the consecutive mode also resulted in significantly more and longer fixations and shifts of attention. Participants also allocated significantly more overt visual attention to the Interviewer than the Suspect, particularly in the consecutive mode. Furthermore, we found informative significant correlations between eye tracking measures and interpreting performance: accuracy, verbal rapport, and management. Finally, we found no significant differences between the three language pairs tested. We conclude with a discussion of limitations and the contributions of the study and an outline for future work on this topic of growing importance. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that are better (...) aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

Immersive 360-degree video has become a new learning resource because of its immersive sensory experience. This study examined the effects of textual and visual cues on learning and attention in immersive 360-degree video by using eye-tracking equipment integrated in a virtual reality head-mounted display. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: no cues, textual cues in the initial field of view, textual cues outside the initial FOV, and textual cues outside the initial FOV + visual (...) cues. The results showed that the cues helped learners achieve better learning outcomes and spend more time focusing on the areas with cues. In addition, the study found a serious imbalance in the distribution of learners’ attention in each region of the video. The attention directed to textual cues in the initial FOV is much higher than the attention directed to textual cues outside the initial FOV. Adding visual cues can effectively direct attention to textual cues outside the initial FOV and alleviate the imbalance of attention distribution. Consequently, adding cues to immersive 360-degree video can be an appropriate approach to promote learning and guide attention in immersive 360-degree video learning environments. This study provided new insights into the design and development of immersive 360-degree video instructional resources. (shrink)

In this study, 44 late elementary students’ visual behavior patterns when reading mind maps were investigated, more particularly, the intuitive processing nature of their visual characteristics, reading sequence and presentation mode. Eye-tracked data were investigated by means of static early attention and dynamic educational process mining analysis and combined with learning performance and retrospective interview data. All students seem to struggle with the map’s radial structure during initial reading. Also, the picture’s position in the map diverts students (...) from consecutively reading interconnected branches. EPM analyses revealed different reading patterns in proceeding reading behavior. Students receiving a text first, seem to grasp the radial structure slightly more and show higher information integration attempts. They also attained higher free recall and coherence scores. The study concludes with instructional design principles for urgently needed explicit visual literacy instruction in elementary grades. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that are better (...) aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

This article argues that a theory of media selectivity needs a theory of attention, because attention to a media stimulus is the starting point of each process of reception. Attention sequences towards media stimuli – pages of newspapers and online-newspapers – were analyzed using eye-tracking patterns from three different perspectives. First, attention patterns were compared under varying task conditions. Second, different types of media were tested. Third, attention sequences towards different forms of news with different (...) design patterns were compared. Attention was seen as a prerequisite for reception: Its selective functions for these processes are especially important. Reception itself was examined within an action-theoretical framework and therefore described as a form of interaction between recipient and the media. Eye-tracking data were used as indicators of attention. Starting with a hypothesis on the impact of different media such as printed newspapers and online newspapers on the agenda-setting process of their audience, the study examined how the type of media and the form of news influences attention and selectivity. Our findings showed that visual cues such as salient photos or graphics and information hierarchies signalled by design and layout guide attention processes, not as an automatic process driven from the bottom up, but as stimuli for an active, intention-driven selection process. The results indicate that the form of news affects these patterns of interactive attention more than the medium itself. (shrink)

The study aims to investigate visual attention and perceived attractiveness to known versus unknown products above and beyond self-report applying physiological methods. A cross-cultural exploratory approach allows for comparing results gathered in the United States and China. We collected field data on physiological parameters accompanied by behavioral data. Mobile eye-tracking was employed to capture attention by measuring gaze parameters and electrodermal activity serves as indicator for arousal at an unconscious level. A traditional scale approach measuring perceived attractiveness (...) of known versus novel products provide insights at a conscious level. US-American and Chinese consumers in our sample indeed process novel products differently. This can be observed at an unconscious and conscious level. Different gaze movements and arousal levels are observed at an unconscious level. Regarding behavioral data, the level of vertical orientation shapes the perceived attractiveness of novel products at a conscious level. The study showcases how physiological methods complement behavioral ones when investigating visual attention to products. It underlines varying conscious as well as unconscious visual attention and attractiveness ratings comparing known versus novel products, driven by cultural differences. Data from a field setting further enrich the implications derived for new product development and applied marketing. (shrink)

Background: Facial attractiveness influences our perceptions of others, with beautiful faces reaping societal rewards and anomalous faces encountering penalties. The purpose of this study was to determine associations of visual attention with bias and social dispositions toward people with facial anomalies. -/- Methods: Sixty subjects completed tests evaluating implicit bias, explicit bias, and social dispositions before viewing publicly available images of preoperative and postoperative patients with hemifacial microsomia. Eye-tracking was used to register visual fixations. -/- Results: Participants (...) with higher implicit bias scores fixated significantly less on the cheek and ear region preoperatively (P = 0.004). Participants with higher scores in empathic concern and perspective taking fixated more on the forehead and orbit preoperatively (P = 0.045) and nose and lips (P = 0.027) preoperativel. -/- Conclusions: Participants with higher levels of implicit bias spent less visual attention on anomalous facial anatomy, whereas participants with higher levels of empathic concern and perspective taking spent more visual attention on normal facial anatomy. Levels of bias and social dispositions such as empathy may predict layperson gaze patterns toward those with facial anomalies and provide insights to neural mechanisms underlying the "anomalous is bad" paradigm. (shrink)

Installation art is one of the most important and provocative developments in the visual arts during the last half century and has become a key focus of artists and of contemporary museums. It is also seen as particularly challenging or even disliked by many viewers, and-due to its unique in situ, immersive setting-is equally regarded as difficult or even beyond the grasp of present methods in empirical aesthetic psychology. In this paper, we introduce an exploratory study with installation art, (...) utilizing a collection of techniques to capture the eclectic, the embodied, and often the emotionally-charged viewing experience. We present results from an investigation of two pieces, both part of Olafur Eliasson's exhibition "Baroque, Baroque" held at the Belvedere museum in Vienna. These were assessed by administered pre- and post-viewing questionnaires focusing on emotion, meaning-making, and appraisals, in tandem with mobile eye tracking to consider viewers' attention to both installed artworks and/or the museum environment. The data showed differences in participants' emotional states, appraisals, and visual exploration, which together paint a picture of the aesthetic reactions to the works. These differences also showed how viewers' appraisal strategies, meaning making, and physical actions facilitated relatively more or less deep engagement with, and enjoyment of, the art pieces. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for museum studies, art education, and theory in empirical aesthetics. (shrink)

Joint attention has been extensively studied in the developmental literature because of overwhelming evidence that the ability to socially coordinate visual attention to an object is essential to healthy developmental outcomes, including language learning. The goal of this study was to understand the complex system of sensory-motor behaviors that may underlie the establishment of joint attention between parents and toddlers. In an experimental task, parents and toddlers played together with multiple toys. We objectively measured joint (...) class='Hi'>attention—and the sensory-motor behaviors that underlie it—using a dual head-mounted eye-tracking system and frame-by-frame coding of manual actions. By tracking the momentary visual fixations and hand actions of each participant, we precisely determined just how often they fixated on the same object at the same time, the visual behaviors that preceded joint attention and manual behaviors that preceded and co-occurred with joint attention. We found that multiple sequential sensory-motor patterns lead to joint attention. In addition, there are developmental changes in this multi-pathway system evidenced as variations in strength among multiple routes. We propose that coordinated visual attention between parents and toddlers is primarily a sensory-motor behavior. Skill in achieving coordinated visual attention in social settings—like skills in other sensory-motor domains—emerges from multiple pathways to the same functional end. (shrink)

The use of visual attention for evaluating consumer behavior has become a relevant field in recent years, allowing researchers to understand the decision-making processes beyond classical self-reports. In our research, we focused on using eye-tracking as a method to understand consumer preferences in children. Twenty-eight subjects with ages between seven and twelve years participated in the experiment. Participants were involved in two consecutive phases. The initial phase consisted of the visualization of a set of stimuli for decision-making in (...) an eight-position layout called Alternative Forced-choice. Then the subjects were asked to freely analyze the set of stimuli, they needed to choose the best in terms of preference. The sample was randomly divided into two groups balanced by gender. One group visualized a set of icons and the other a set of toys. The final phase was an independent assessment of each stimulus viewed in the initial phase in terms of liking/disliking using a 7-point Likert scale. Sixty-four stimuli were designed for each of the groups. The visual attention was measured using a non-obstructive eye-tracking device. The results revealed two novel insights. Firstly, the time of fixation during the last 4 visits to each stimulus before the decision-making instant allows us to recognize the icon or toy chosen from the eight alternatives with a 71.2% and 67.2% of accuracy respectively. The result supports the use of visual attention measurements as an implicit tool to analyze decision-making and preferences in children. Secondly, eye movement and the choice of liking/disliking choice are influenced by stimuli design dimensions. The icon observation results revealed how gender samples have different fixation and different visit times which depend on stimuli design dimension. The toy observations results revealed how the materials determinate the largest amount fixations, also, the visit times were differentiated by gender. This research presents a relevant empirical data to understand the decision-making phenomenon by analyzing eye movement behavior. The presented method can be applied to recognize the choice likelihood between several alternatives. Finally, children's opinions represent an extra difficulty judgment to be determined, and the eye-tracking technique seen as an implicit measure to tackle it. (shrink)

It has been suggested that early cry parameters are connected to later cognitive abilities. The present study is the first to investigate whether the acoustic features of infant cry are associated with cognitive development already during the first year, as measured by oculomotor orienting and attention disengagement. Cry sounds for acoustic analyses (fundamental frequency; F0) were recorded in two neonatal cohorts at the age of 0-8 days (Tampere, Finland) or at 6 weeks (Cape Town, South Africa). Eye tracking was (...) used to measure oculomotor orienting to peripheral visual stimuli and attention disengagement from central stimuli at 8 months (Tampere) or at 6 months (Cape Town) of age. Only a marginal positive correlation between fundamental frequency of cry (F0) and visual attention disengagement was observed in the Tampere cohort, but not in the Cape Town cohort. This correlation indicated that infants from the Tampere cohort with a higher neonatal F0 were marginally slower to shift their gaze away from the central stimulus to the peripheral stimulus. No associations between F0 and oculomotor orienting were observed in either cohort. We discuss possible factors influencing the current pattern of results suggesting a lack of replicable associations between neonatal cry and visual attention and suggest directions for future research investigating the potential of early cry analysis in predicting later cognitive development. (shrink)

The ability to distinguish between subtle differences among emotions of similar valence is labelled emotion differentiation (ED). Previous research has demonstrated that people high in ED are less likely to use disengagement regulation strategies (i.e. avoidance/distraction) during negative affective states.The present eye-tracking study examined associations between ED and visual attention/avoidance of affective stimuli. A total of 160 participants viewed emotional video clips (positive/ negative), which were concurrently presented with a non-affective distractor image. After each video, participants verbally described (...) their experienced emotions with adjectives in an open-response format. Moreover, they completed an ED questionnaire.The computed ED specificity index for the negative videos (the number of specific adjectives divided by all adjectives used) was positively associated with the scores on the ED questionnaire and visual revisits for the negative videos (how many times the participants gazed back and forth between video and distractor). This viewing style might reflect more active exploratory behaviour directed toward acquiring information about the negative stimulus and its context. The ED measures were not associated with the gaze behaviour for positive videos. (shrink)

Access to communication is critical for individuals with late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and minimal volitional movement, but they sometimes present with concomitant visual or ocular motility impairments that affect their performance with eye tracking or visual brain-computer interface systems. In this study, we explored the use of modified eye tracking and steady state visual evoked potential BCI, in combination with the Shuffle Speller typing interface, for this population. Two participants with late-stage ALS, visual impairments, and minimal (...) volitional movement completed a single-case experimental research design comparing copy-spelling performance with three different typing systems: commercially available eye tracking communication software, Shuffle Speller with modified eye tracking, and Shuffle Speller with SSVEP BCI. Participant 1 was unable to type any correct characters with the commercial system, but achieved accuracies of up to 50% with Shuffle Speller eye tracking and 89% with Shuffle Speller BCI. Participant 2 also had higher maximum accuracies with Shuffle Speller, typing with up to 63% accuracy with eye tracking and 100% accuracy with BCI. However, participants’ typing accuracy for both Shuffle Speller conditions was highly variable, particularly in the BCI condition. Both the Shuffle Speller interface and SSVEP BCI input show promise for improving typing performance for people with late-stage ALS. Further development of innovative BCI systems for this population is needed. (shrink)

Visual phenomenology is highly elusive. One attempt to operationalize or to measure it is to use ‘cognitive accessibility’ to track its degrees. However, if Ned Block is right about the overflow phenomenon, then this way of operationalizing visual phenomenology is bound to fail. This thesis does not directly challenge Block’s view; rather it motivates a notion of cognitive accessibility different from Block’s one, and argues that given this notion, degrees of visual phenomenology can be tracked by degrees (...) of cognitive accessibility. Block points out that in the psychology literature, ‘cognitive accessibility’ is often regarded as either all or nothing. However, the notion motivated in the thesis captures the important fact that accessibility comes in degrees (consider the visual field from fovea the periphery). Different legitimate notions of accessibility might be adopted for different purposes. The notion of accessibility motivated here is weaker than Block’s ‘identification’ (2007) but is stronger than Tye’s ‘demonstration’ (2007). The moral drawn from the discussion of Block can be applied to the debate between Dretske and Tye on the speckled-hen style examples. Dretske’s view is even stronger than Block’s, but his arguments from various figures he provides do not support his conclusion since he does not have right ideas about fixation and attention. Tye’s picture is more plausible but his notion of accessibility is so weak that he reaches the excessive conclusion that accessibility overflows phenomenology. Three ramifications might be considered in the final part of the thesis. The first is the relation between this debate and the one concerning higher-order/same-order theories of consciousness. The second is about John McDowell’s early proposal about demonstrative concepts in visual experiences. The third is the relation between the interpretation of the Sperling case proposed here and McDowell new view of experiential contents, i.e., his story about how we carve out conceptual contents out of intuitional contents without falling pray to the Myth of the Given. (shrink)

This study investigates the online process of reading and analyzing of sketchnotes (visual notes containing a handwritten text and drawings) on Russian language material. Using the eye-tracking method, we compared the processing of different types of sketchnotes (‘path’ (trajectory), linear, and radial) and the processing of a verbal text. Biographies of Russian writers were used as the material. In a preliminary experiment, we asked 89 college students to read the biographies and to evaluate each text or sketch using five (...) scales (from -2 to +2). The best example for each of three formats of sketchnotes and a verbal text were chosen. In the main experiment, twenty-one secondary school students examined four different biographies in four different formats (three sketchnotes and a verbal text), answered to the factual and analytical questions to these texts and estimated the difficulty of each text. We measured the total dwell time, the total fixation count, the average fixation duration for each stimulus as well as for separate zones inside the sketches including verbal and non-verbal information. Our results show that readers process the information better and faster while reading sketchnotes than a verbal text. In the trajectory sketchnotes, the readers followed the order of elements aimed by the author of the sketchnotes better than in the radial and linear sketchnotes. The analysis of participants’ eye movements while processing the stimuli made it possible to propose several recommendations for creating effective sketchnotes. (shrink)

Borrowing behavior may be more resistant to formal educational treatments than other financial behaviors. In order to study the process and results of infographics-based debt education, we used eye tracking technology (SMI RED 500 Hz) to monitor the oculomotor behavior of 108 participants (68 females) aged 18 to 60 who were shown 4 infographics. The study used an experimental design with repeated measures and an internal comparison group. We also used scales of debt literacy and a set of information literacy (...) scales: numerical, graph, and linguistic. The results confirm that short-term infographics-based debt education can improve debt literacy significantly. The difference in processing the educational contents that were not known to participants before the educational session suggests that participants with better information literacy make more considerable debt literacy progress. Specifically, we found that numerical literacy is a significant mediator of debt education results, depending on the initial level of debt literacy; this relation is moderated by the focus of visual attention on negatives of debt. We found no significant relationship between debt literacy education results and those of graph and linguistic literacy. (shrink)

Evidence from adult studies of deaf signers supports the dissociation between neural systems involved in processing visual linguistic and non-linguistic body actions. The question of how and when this specialization arises is poorly understood. Visual attention to these forms is likely to change with age and be affected by prior language experience. The present study used eye-tracking methodology with infants and children as they freely viewed alternating video sequences of lexical American sign language (ASL) signs and non-linguistic (...) body actions (self-directed grooming action and object-directed pantomime). In Experiment 1, we quantified fixation patterns using an area of interest (AOI) approach and calculated face preference index (FPI) values to assess the developmental differences between 6 and 11-month-old hearing infants. Both groups were from monolingual English-speaking homes with no prior exposure to sign language. Six-month-olds attended the signer’s face for grooming; but for mimes and signs, they were drawn to attend to the “articulatory space” where the hands and arms primarily fall. Eleven-month-olds, on the other hand, showed a similar attention to the face for all body action types. We interpret this to reflect an early visual language sensitivity that diminishes with age, just before the child’s first birthday. In Experiment 2, we contrasted 18 hearing monolingual English-speaking children (mean age of 4.8 years) vs. 13 hearing children of deaf adults (CODAs; mean age of 5.7 years) whose primary language at home was ASL. Native signing children had a significantly greater face attentional bias than non-signing children for ASL signs, but not for grooming and mimes. The differences in the visual attention patterns that are contingent on age (in infants) and language experience (in children) may be related to both linguistic specialization over time and the emerging awareness of communicative gestural acts. (shrink)

Online data collection with infants raises special opportunities and challenges for developmental research. One of the most prevalent methods in infancy research is eye-tracking, which has been widely applied in laboratory settings to assess cognitive development. Technological advances now allow conducting eye-tracking online with various populations, including infants. However, the accuracy and reliability of online infant eye-tracking remain to be comprehensively evaluated. No research to date has directly compared webcam-based and in-lab eye-tracking data from infants, similarly to data from adults. (...) The present study provides a direct comparison of in-lab and webcam-based eye-tracking data from infants who completed an identical looking time paradigm in two different settings. We assessed 4-6-month-old infants in an eye-tracking task that measured the detection of audio-visual asynchrony. Webcam-based and in-lab eye-tracking data were compared on eye-tracking and video data quality, infants’ viewing behavior, and experimental effects. Results revealed no differences between the in-lab and online setting in the frequency of technical issues and participant attrition rates. Video data quality was comparable between settings in terms of completeness and brightness, despite lower frame rate and resolution online. Eye-tracking data quality was higher in the laboratory than online, except in case of relative sample loss. Gaze data quantity recorded by eye-tracking was significantly lower than by video in both settings. In valid trials, eye-tracking and video data captured infants’ viewing behavior uniformly, irrespective of setting. Despite the common challenges of infant eye-tracking across experimental settings, our results point toward the necessity to further improve the precision of online eye-tracking with infants. Taken together, online eye-tracking is a promising tool to assess infants’ gaze behavior but requires careful data quality control. The demographic composition of both samples differed from the generic population on caregiver education: our samples comprised caregivers with higher-than-average education levels, challenging the notion that online studies will per se reach more diverse populations. (shrink)

This study looked for evidence of biases in the allocation and disengagement of attention in dysphoric individuals. Participants studied images for a recognition memory test while their eye fixations were tracked and recorded. Four image types were presented (depression-related, anxiety-related, positive, neutral) in each of two study conditions. For the simultaneous study condition, four images (one of each type) were presented simultaneously for 10 seconds, and the number of fixations and the total fixation time to each image was measured, (...) similar to the procedure used by Eizenman et al. (2003) and Kellough, Beevers, Ellis, and Wells (2008). For the sequential study condition, four images (one of each type) were presented consecutively, each for 4 seconds; to measure disengagement of attention an endogenous cuing procedure was used (Posner, 1980). Dysphoric individuals spent significantly less time attending to positive images than non-dysphoric individuals, but there were no group differences in attention to depression-related images. There was also no evidence of a dysphoria-related bias in initial shifts of attention. With respect to the disengagement of attention, dysphoric individuals were slower to disengage their attention from depression-related images. The recognition memory data showed that dysphoric individuals had poorer memory for emotional images, but there was no evidence of a conventional mood-congruent memory bias. Differences in the attentional and memory biases observed in depressed and dysphoric individuals are discussed. (shrink)

A basic principle of objectification theory is that a mere glance from a stranger represents the potential to be sexualized, triggering women to take on the perspective of others and become vigilant to their appearance. However, research has yet to document gendered gaze patterns in social groups. The present study examined visual attention in groups of varying gender composition to understand how gender and minority status influence gaze behavior. One hundred undergraduates enrolled in psychology courses were photographed, and (...) an additional 76 participants viewed groupings of these photographs while their point of gaze was recorded using a remote eye-tracking device. Participants were not told that their gaze was being recorded. Women were viewed more frequently and for longer periods of time than men in mixed-gender groups. Women were also more likely to be looked at first and last by observers. Men spent more time attending to pictures of women when fewer women were in the group. The opposite effect was found for pictures of men, such that male pictures were viewed less when fewer pictures of men were in the group. Female observers spent more time looking at men compared to male observers, and male observers spent more time looking at women than female observers, though both female and male observers looked at women more than men overall. Consistent with objectification theory, women’s appearance garners more attention and interest in mixed-gender social groups. (shrink)

Face perception and emotion categorization are widely investigated under laboratory conditions that are devoid of real social interaction. Using mobile eye-tracking glasses in a standardized diagnostic setting while applying the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, we had the opportunity to record gaze behavior of children and adolescents with and without Autism Spectrum Conditions during social interaction. The objective was to investigate differences in eye-gaze behavior between three groups of children and adolescents either with ASC or with unconfirmed diagnosis of ASC or (...) with neurotypical development during social interaction with an adult interviewer in a diagnostic standard situation using the ADOS-2. In a case control study, we used mobile eye-tracking glasses in an ecologically valid and highly standardized diagnostic interview to investigate suspected cases of ASC. After completion of the ASC diagnostic gold standard including the ADOS-2, the participants were assigned to two groups based on their diagnosis and compared with a matched group of neurotypically developed controls. The primary outcome measure is the percentage of total dwell times assessed for different areas of interest with regard to the face and body of a diagnostic interviewer and the surrounding space. Overall, 65 children and adolescents within an age range of 8.3–17.9 years were included in the study. The data revealed significant group differences, especially in the central-face area. Previous investigations under laboratory conditions gave preferential attention to the eye region during face perception to describe differences between ASC and NTD. In this study – using an ecologically valid setting within a standard diagnostic procedure – the results indicate that neurotypically developed controls seem to process faces and facial expressions in a holistic manner originating from the central-face region. Conversely, participants on the Autism Spectrum seem to avoid the central-face region and show unsystematic gaze behavior, not using the preferred landing position in the central-face region as the Archimedean point of face perception. This study uses a new approach, and it will be important to replicate these preliminary findings in future research. (shrink)

The visual behaviour of consumers buying products in a supermarket was measured and used to analyse the stages of their decision process. Traditionally metrics used to trace decision-making processes are difficult to use in natural environments that often contain many options and unstructured information. Unlike previous attempts in this direction, our methodology reveals differences between a decision-making task and a search task. In particular the second stage of a decision task contains more re-dwells than the second stage of a (...) comparable search task. This study addresses the growing concern of taking eye movement research from the laboratory into the ‘real-world’, so findings can be better generalised to natural situations. (shrink)

Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a sub-discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) emerged from the availability of social semiotic frameworks describing multimodal meaning making. However, weaknesses of these frameworks have raised concerns and prompted recent methodological reflections in MCDA. Inspired by these reflections, this paper critically assesses MCDA research on advertising persuasion and identifies a lack of attention in studies to account for the social and ideological impact of advertising. This shortcoming is argued to be attributable to the (...) weak empirical grounding of social semiotic frameworks which in turn is rooted in a ‘discursive gap’ (Bateman, Citation2019, p. 300) in multimodality as a discipline. The authors then propose methodological solutions involving eye tracking experiments and higher order data analytics which can strengthen the empirical basis of theoretical assumptions made in MCDA research on advertising. Drawing on methodological guidance for empirical multimodal research, the authors discuss specific issues in realizing this proposal, focusing on a strategy addressing operationalization challenges in experimental design and the affordance of a data cluster algorithm that calculates the common viewing path of a group of viewers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSocial attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial–temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high and low in social anxiety traits entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their (...) gaze towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors’ faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals’ first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following beha... (shrink)

The oral eye is a metaphor for the dominance of global designer capitalism. It refers to the consumerism of a designer aesthetic by the 'I' of the neoliberalist subject, as well as the aural soundscapes that accompany the hegemony of the capturing attention through screen cultures. An attempt is made to articulate the historical emergence of such a synoptic machinic regime drawing on Badiou, Bellmer, Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, Rancir̈e, Virilio, Ziarek, and Zizek to explore contemporary art (post-Situationism) and (...) class='Hi'>visual cultural education. Jagodzinski develops the concept of an 'avant-garde without authority,' 'self-refleXion' and 'in(design)' to further the questions surrounding the posthuman as advanced by theorists such as Hansen, Stiegler and Ziarek's 'force' of art. (shrink)

It has been four decades since eye-tracking was first used in interpreting studies, and recent years has witnessed a growing interest in the application of this method, which holds great potential for offering a look into the “black box” of interpreting processing. However, little attention has been paid to comprehensively illustrating what has been done, what can be done, and what needs to be done with this method in this discipline. With this in view, this paper sets out to (...) understand contributions of previous studies—key themes discussed, eye-tracking measures used, their limitations and implications, and future directions. To this end, we conduct a review of a total of 26 empirical papers from peer-reviewed journals within a time span of 4 decades ranging from 1981 to 2021. This study, as the first attempt of its kind at a comprehensive review on using eye-tracking in interpreting studies, should have implications for researchers, educators, and practitioners. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe present study examined relationships between attention to negative words and daily rumination and daily adjustment in a sample of clinically depressed individuals. We recorded eye movements of 43 individuals diagnosed with major depression while they were freely viewing dysphoric, threat-related, neutral, and positive words. Then, each day for one week, participants provided measures of their daily rumination and psychological adjustment. Multilevel analyses found that attention to dysphoric and threat-related words was positively related to daily rumination and (...) class='Hi'>attention to threat-related words was negatively related to daily adjustment. These findings suggest that the impaired ability to disengage from negative words is positively related to rumination in daily life and is negatively related to well-being, as defined in terms of Beck’s Triad. (shrink)

Subject relative clauses (SRCs) are typically processed more easily than object relative clauses (ORCs), but this difference is diminished by an inanimate head‐noun in semantically non‐reversible ORCs (“The book that the boy is reading”). In two eye‐tracking experiments, we investigated the influence of animacy on online processing of semantically reversible SRCs and ORCs using lexically inanimate items that were perceptually animate due to motion (e.g., “Where is the tractor that the cow is chasing”). In Experiment 1, 48 children (aged 4;5–6;4) (...) and 32 adults listened to sentences that varied in the lexical animacy of the NP1 head‐noun (Animate/Inanimate) and relative clause (RC) type (SRC/ORC) with an animate NP2 while viewing two images depicting opposite actions. As expected, inanimate head‐nouns facilitated the correct interpretation of ORCs in children; however, online data revealed children were more likely to anticipate an SRC as the RC unfolded when an inanimate head‐noun was used, suggesting processing was sensitive to perceptual animacy. In Experiment 2, we repeated our design with inanimate (rather than animate) NP2s (e.g., “where is the tractor that the car is following”) to investigate whether our online findings were due to increased visual surprisal at an inanimate as agent, or to similarity‐based interference. We again found greater anticipation for an SRC in the inanimate condition, supporting our surprisal hypothesis. Across the experiments, offline measures show that lexical animacy influenced children's interpretation of ORCs, whereas online measures reveal that as RCs unfolded, children were sensitive to the perceptual animacy of lexically inanimate NPs, which was not reflected in the offline data. Overall measures of syntactic comprehension, inhibitory control, and verbal short‐term memory and working memory were not predictive of children's accuracy in RC interpretation, with the exception of a positive correlation with a standardized measure of syntactic comprehension in Experiment 1. (shrink)

Learning from a text–picture multimedia document is particularly effective if learners can link information within the text and across the verbal and the pictorial representations. The ability to create a mental model successfully and include those implicit links is related to the ability to generate inferences. Text processing research has found that text cohesion facilitates the generation of inferences, and thus text comprehension for learners with poor prior knowledge or reading abilities, but is detrimental for learners with good prior knowledge (...) or reading abilities. Moreover, multimedia research has found a positive effect from adding visual representations to text information, particularly when implementing signaling, which consists of verbal or visual cues designed to guide attention to the pictorial representation of relevant information. We expected that, as with text-only documents, struggling readers would benefit from high text cohesion and that signaling would foster inference generation as well. Further, we hypothesized that better learning outcomes would be observed when text cohesion was low and signaling was present. Our first experimental study investigated the effect of those two factors on three levels of comprehension. Participants were adolescents in prevocational schools, where some of the students are struggling readers. The results showed a trend in favor of high cohesion, but with no significant effect, a significant positive effect of cross-representational signaling on comprehension from local inferences, and no interaction effect. A second experiment focused on signaling only and attention toward the picture, with collection of eye-tracking data in addition to measures of offline comprehension. As this study was conducted with university students, who are expected to have higher reading abilities and thus are less likely to benefit from high cohesion, the material was presented in its low cohesive version. The results showed no effect of conditions on comprehension performances but confirmed differences in processing behaviors. Participants allocated more attention to the pictorial representation in the CRS condition than in the no signaling condition. (shrink)

Theoretical models propose that attentional biases might account for the maintenance of social anxiety symptoms. However, previous eye-tracking studies have yielded mixed results. One explanation i...

Research demonstrates that women experience disgust more readily and with more intensity than men. The experience of disgust is associated with increased attention to disgust-related stimuli, but no prior study has examined sex differences in attention to disgust facial expressions. We hypothesised that women, compared to men, would demonstrate increased attention to disgust facial expressions. Participants completed an eye tracking task to measure visual attention to emotional facial expressions. Results indicated that women spent more time (...) attending to disgust facial expressions compared to men. Unexpectedly, we found that men spent significantly more time attending to neutral faces compared to women. The findings indicate that women’s increased experience of emotional disgust also extends to attention to disgust facial stimuli. These findings may help to explain sex differences in the experience of disgust and in diagnoses of anxiety disorders in which disgust plays an important role. (shrink)

Eye-tracking technology has become a powerful tool for biomedical-related applications due to its simplicity of operation and low requirements on patient language skills. This study aims to use the machine-learning models and deep-learning networks to identify key features of eye movements in Alzheimer's Disease (AD) under specific visual tasks, thereby facilitating computer-aided diagnosis of AD. Firstly, a three-dimensional (3D) visuospatial memory task is designed to provide participants with visual stimuli while their eye-movement data are recorded and used to (...) build an eye-tracking dataset. Then, we propose a novel deep-learning-based model for identifying patients with Alzheimer's Disease (PwAD) and healthy controls (HCs) based on the collected eye-movement data. The proposed model utilizes a nested autoencoder network to extract the eye-movement features from the generated fixation heatmaps and a weight adaptive network layer for the feature fusion, which can preserve as much useful information as possible for the final binary classification. To fully verify the performance of the proposed model, we also design two types of models based on traditional machine-learning and typical deep-learning for comparison. Furthermore, we have also done ablation experiments to verify the effectiveness of each module of the proposed network. Finally, these models are evaluated by four-fold cross-validation on the built eye-tracking dataset. The proposed model shows 85% average accuracy in AD recognition, outperforming machine-learning methods and other typical deep-learning networks. (shrink)

This article reports an experimental study aimed at evaluating the change of cognitive processes in ethical decision making before and after business ethics training. An experimental design (Solomon Four-Group Design) was used to test the effectiveness of the training within a German university undergraduate business-oriented student sample. The cognitive processes in decision making (implicit and explicit moral attitudes, selective attention, moral awareness, moral judgment, moral intention, and moral behavior) were measured by using different direct instruments (e.g. questionnaire items (...) for moral judgments and explicit moral attitude scales) as well as indirect measures such as eye-tracking and the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The study yielded mixed results. On the one hand, significant changes in explicit attitudes, moral awareness, moral judgments, moral intention, and moral behavior in the pre-post-measurements of the training group have been revealed. On the other hand, there were no significant differences between the pre-post-measurements of the first training and control group as well as between the posttest-only-measures of the second training and control group. In addition, the implicit measures did not show any significant training effect. Implications with an emphasis on methodological aspects for future research on business ethics training are discussed. (shrink)

Visual information conveyed by iconic hand gestures and visible speech can enhance speech comprehension under adverse listening conditions for both native and non‐native listeners. However, how a listener allocates visual attention to these articulators during speech comprehension is unknown. We used eye‐tracking to investigate whether and how native and highly proficient non‐native listeners of Dutch allocated overt eye gaze to visible speech and gestures during clear and degraded speech comprehension. Participants watched video clips of an actress uttering (...) a clear or degraded (6‐band noise‐vocoded) action verb while performing a gesture or not, and were asked to indicate the word they heard in a cued‐recall task. Gestural enhancement was the largest (i.e., a relative reduction in reaction time cost) when speech was degraded for all listeners, but it was stronger for native listeners. Both native and non‐native listeners mostly gazed at the face during comprehension, but non‐native listeners gazed more often at gestures than native listeners. However, only native but not non‐native listeners' gaze allocation to gestures predicted gestural benefit during degraded speech comprehension. We conclude that non‐native listeners might gaze at gesture more as it might be more challenging for non‐native listeners to resolve the degraded auditory cues and couple those cues to phonological information that is conveyed by visible speech. This diminished phonological knowledge might hinder the use of semantic information that is conveyed by gestures for non‐native compared to native listeners. Our results demonstrate that the degree of language experience impacts overt visual attention to visual articulators, resulting in different visual benefits for native versus non‐native listeners. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to find out how people process the dialectal variation encountered in the daily linguistic input. We conducted an eye tracking study (Visual Word Paradigm) that targeted the predictive processing of grammatical gender markers. Three different groups of Norwegian speakers took part in the experiment: one group of students from the capital Oslo, and two groups of dialect speakers from the Western Norwegian town Sogndal. One Sogndal group was defined as ``stable dialect speakers'', and (...) one as ``unstable dialect speakers'', based on a background questionnaire. The students participated in two eye tracking experiments each, one conducted in the their own dialect, and one in the other dialect (i.e., Sogn dialect for the Oslo students, and Oslo dialect for the Sogndal students). The gender systems in the two dialects differ: the Sogn dialect makes an obligatory three-gender split (Masculine, Feminine and Neuter) whereas the Oslo dialect only obligatorily makes a two gender distinction. The research question was whether speakers could use gender markers to predict the upcoming target noun in both local and non-local dialect mode, and furthermore, if they correctly could adjust their expectations based on dialect mode. The results showed that the Sogn speakers could predict upcoming linguistic material both in the local and Oslo dialect, but only the stable group were able to adjust their predictions based on the dialect mode. The unstable group applied a more general Oslo-compatible parsing to both the local and the non-local dialect. The Oslo speakers on the other hand were able to use gender markers as predictors only in their own dialect. We argue that the stable Sogn group should be treated as a bilingual group, as they show native-like skills in both varieties, while the unstable Sogn group can be seen as accommodated monolinguals, in that they treat the two varieties as sharing an underspecified grammar. The Oslo group on the other hand lacks sufficient competence in the other dialect to make use of grammatical markers to make predictions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSeveral eye-tracking studies have revealed that spider phobic patients show a typical hypervigilance-avoidance pattern when confronted with images of spiders. The present experiment investigated if this pattern can be changed via placebo treatment. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with 37 women with spider phobia. They looked at picture pairs for 7 s each in a retest design: once with and once without a placebo pill presented along with the verbal suggestion that it can reduce phobic symptoms. The placebo was labelled (...) as Propranolol, a beta-blocker that has been successfully used to treat spider phobia. In the placebo condition, both the fixation count and the dwell time on the spider pictures increased, especially in the second half of the presentation time. This was associated with a slight decrease in self-reported symptom severity. In summary, we were able to show that a placebo was able to positively influence visual avoidance in spider phobia.... (shrink)

Numerous studies have focused on the understanding of rapid automatized naming, which can be applied to predict reading abilities and developmental dyslexia in children. Eye tracking technique, characterizing the essential ocular activities, might have the feasibility to reveal the visual and cognitive features of RAN. However, traditional measures of eye movements ignore many dynamical details about the visual and cognitive processing of RAN, and are usually associated with the duration of time spent on some particular areas of interest, (...) fixation counts, revisited fixation counts, saccadic velocities, or saccadic amplitudes. To cope with this drawback, we suggested an entropy-based method to measure eye movements for the first time, which first mapped eye movements during RAN in a time-series and then analyzed the time-series by a proper definition of entropy from the perspective of information theory. Our findings showed that the entropy was more sensitive to reflect small perturbation of eye movements, and thus gained better performance than traditional measures. We also verified that the entropy of eye movements significantly deceased with the age and the task complexity of RAN, and significantly correlated with traditional eye-movement measures [e.g., total time of naming ] and the RAN-related skills [e.g., selective attention, cognitive speed, and visual-motor integration]. Our findings may bring some new insights into the understanding of both RAN and eye tracking technique itself. (shrink)

Difficulties understanding speech form one of the most prevalent complaints among older adults. Successful speech perception depends on top-down linguistic and cognitive processes that interact with the bottom-up sensory processing of the incoming acoustic information. The relative roles of these processes in age-related difficulties in speech perception, especially when listening conditions are not ideal, are still unclear. In the current study, we asked whether older adults with a larger working memory capacity process speech more efficiently than peers with lower capacity (...) when speech is presented in noise, with another task performed in tandem. Using the Eye-tracking of Word Identification in Noise Under Memory Increased Load an adapted version of the “visual world” paradigm, 36 older listeners were asked to follow spoken instructions presented in background noise, while retaining digits for later recall under low or high memory load. In critical trials, instructions directed listeners’ gaze to pictures of objects whose names shared onset or offset sounds with the name of a competitor that was displayed on the screen at the same time. We compared listeners with different memory capacities on the time course for spoken word recognition under the two memory loads by testing eye-fixations on a named object, relative to fixations on an object whose name shared phonology with the named object. Results indicated two trends. For older adults with lower working memory capacity, increased memory load did not affect online speech processing, however, it impaired offline word recognition accuracy. The reverse pattern was observed for older adults with higher working memory capacity: increased task difficulty significantly decreases online speech processing efficiency but had no effect on offline word recognition accuracy. Results suggest that in older adults, adaptation to adverse listening conditions is at least partially supported by cognitive reserve. Therefore, additional cognitive capacity may lead to greater resilience of older listeners to adverse listening conditions. The differential effects documented by eye movements and accuracy highlight the importance of using both online and offline measures of speech processing to explore age-related changes in speech perception. (shrink)

One of the most important social cognitive skills in humans is the ability to “put oneself in someone else’s shoes,” that is, to take another person’s perspective. In socially situated communication, perspective taking enables the listener to arrive at a meaningful interpretation of what is said and what is meant by the speaker. To successfully decode the speaker’s meaning, the listener has to take into account which information he/she and the speaker share in their common ground. We here further investigated (...) competing accounts about when and how CG information affects language comprehension by means of reaction time measures, accuracy data, event-related potentials, and eye-tracking. Early integration accounts would predict that CG information is considered immediately and would hence not expect to find costs of CG integration. Late integration accounts would predict a rather late and effortful integration of CG information during the parsing process that might be reflected in integration or updating costs. Other accounts predict the simultaneous integration of privileged ground and CG perspectives. We used a computerized version of the referential communication game with object triplets of different sizes presented visually in CG or PG. In critical trials, CG information had to be integrated while privileged information had to be suppressed. Listeners mastered the integration of CG. Yet, slower RTs, and enhanced late positivities in the ERPs showed that CG integration had its costs. Moreover, eye-tracking data indicated an early anticipation of referents in CG but an inability to suppress looks to the privileged competitor, resulting in later and longer looks to targets in those trials, in which CG information had to be considered. Our data therefore support accounts that foresee an early anticipation of referents to be in CG but a rather late and effortful integration if conflicting information has to be processed. We show that both perspectives, PG and CG, contribute to socially situated language processing and discuss the data with reference to theoretical accounts and recent findings on the use of CG information for reference resolution. (shrink)

Modern consumers face a dramatic rise in web-based technological advancements and have trouble making rational and proper decisions when they shop online. When they try to make decisions about products and services, they also feel pressured against time when sorting among all of the unnecessary items in the flood of information available on the web. In this sense, they need to use consumer decision-making creativity to make rational decisions. However, unexplored research questions on this subject remain. First, in what ways (...) do task difficulty and time constraints affect visual attention on exploitative and exploratory activities differently? Second, how does the location of the reference influence the level of visual attention to exploitative and exploratory activities depending on affordance theory? Third, how do exploratory and exploitative activities affect CDMC? Eye-tracking experiments were conducted with 70 participants to obtain relevant metrics such as total fixation duration, fixation count, and visit count to answer these research questions. Our findings suggest that task difficulty influences exploitative activity, whereas time constraint is related to the exploratory activity. The result of the location of hints aligns with the affordance theory for the exploitative activity. Besides, exploratory activity positively affected CDMC, but exploitative activity did not show any effect. (shrink)

(This version was submitted to Behavioral and Brain Science. A revised version was published by Biological Theory) Estimates of autism’s incidence increased 5-10 fold in ten years, an increase which cannot be genetic. Though many mutations are associated with autism, no mutation seems directly to cause autism. We need to find the direct cause. Complexity science provides a new paradigm - confirmed in biology by extensive hard data. Both the body and the personality are complex dynamic systems which spontaneously self-organize (...) from simple dynamic systems. Autism may therefore be caused by the failure of a simple dynamic system. We know that infants who cannot track their mother’s face often become autistic, that eye-contact initiates intersubjectivity which is blocked in autism, and that the infant-mother pair seems designed to promote eye-contact, as does the eye’s appearance. This author earlier proposed that failure of eye-contact might directly cause autism and that early non-maternal childcare, including television/video, would therefore be statistically linked to autism. Waldman et al. (2008; 2006) recently proved that autism is strongly linked to precipitation (indoor activity) and to the introduction of cable. The most plausible explanation? Early exposure to television/video is linked to autism. Furthermore a normal developmental cascade (blocked in autism) has been deciphered: (a) Infant-mother eye-contact triggers increased maternal attention. (b) Early maternal attention permanently increases not only baseline vasopressin but also that oxytocin release which is triggered by subsequent maternal attention. (c) Vasopressin and oxytocin promote face recognition, gazing-at-the-eyes, emotion recognition, and social bonding. The eye-contact hypothesis suggests a clinical study addressing prevention: recruit prospective parents who agree to curtail television/video/computer/wi-fi in their families; measure autism’s incidence in their children. (shrink)

IntroductionCerebral visual impairment is an important cause of visual impairment in western countries. Perinatal hypoxic-ischemic damage is the most frequent cause of CVI but CVI can also be the result of a genetic disorder. The majority of children with CVI have cerebral palsy and/or developmental delay. Early diagnosis is crucial; however, there is a need for consensus on evidence based diagnostic tools and referral criteria. The aim of this study is to develop guidelines for diagnosis and referral in (...) CVI according to the grade method.Patients and MethodsWe developed the guidelines according to the GRADE method 5 searches on CVI were performed in the databases Medline, Embase, and Psychinfo, each with a distinct topic.ResultsBased on evidence articles were selected on five topics: 1. Medical history and CVI-questionnaires 23. 2. Ophthalmological and orthoptic assessment 37. 3. Neuropsychological assessment 5. 4. Neuroradiological evaluation and magnetic resonance imaging 9. 5. Genetic assessment 5.ConclusionIn medical history taking, prematurity low birth weight and APGAR Scores are important. Different questionnaires are advised for children under the age of 3 years, older children and for specific risk groups. In ophthalmological examination, eye movements, specially saccades, accommodation, crowding, contrast sensitivity and visual fields should be evaluated. OCT can show objective signs of trans-synaptic degeneration and abnormalities in fixation and saccades can be measured with eye tracking. Screening of visual perceptive functioning is recommended and can be directive for further assessment. MRI findings in CVI in Cerebral Palsy can be structured in five groups: Brain maldevelopment, white and gray matter lesions, postnatal lesions and a normal MRI. In children with CVI and periventricular leukomalacia, brain lesion severity correlates with visual function impairment. A differentiation can be made between cortical and subcortical damage and related visual function impairment. Additional assessments can be necessary to complete the diagnosis of CVI and/or to reveal the etiology. (shrink)

Eye movements during false-belief tasks can reveal an individual's capacity to implicitly monitor others' mental states (theory of mind - ToM). It has been suggested, based on the results of a single-trial-experiment, that this ability is impaired in those with a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD), despite neurotypical-like performance on explicit ToM measures. However, given there are known attention differences and visual hypersensitivities in ASD it is important to establish whether such impairments are evident over time. In addition, (...) investigating implicit ToM using a repeated trial approach allows an assessment of whether learning processes can reduce the ASD impairment in this ability, as is the case with explicit ToM. Here we investigated the temporal profile of implicit ToM in individuals with ASD and a control group. Despite similar performance on explicit ToM measures, ASD-diagnosed individuals showed no evidence of implicit false-belief tracking even over a one-hour period and many trials, whereas control participants did. These findings demonstrate that the systems involved in implicit and explicit ToM are distinct and hint that impaired implicit false-belief tracking may play an important role in ASD. Further, they indicate that learning processes do not alleviate this impairment across the presentation of multiple trials. (shrink)

Background: Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have pronounced difficulties in attending to relevant visual information during social interactions. Method: We designed and evaluated the feasibility of a novel method to train this ability, by exposing participants to virtual human characters displayed on a screen which was entirely blurred, except for a gaze-contingent viewing window that followed participants’ eyes direction. The goal was to incite participants to direct their gaze towards the facial expressions of the virtual characters. Twenty-one adolescents (...) with ASD who attended ordinary school were randomized to either an experimental group, who was trained during a month and a half, or to a control group. Social communicative abilities were assessed during pre, post and follow-up tests. Results: After training, the experimental group showed significantly more interest in facial expressions on a test which involved understanding a dialogue. Significant differences were not found for the other tests used. Conclusions: This outcome suggests that the training method fostered participants’ awareness of the relevance of facial expressions. (shrink)

This study analyzed and explored the cognitive load of Australian energy market operators managing one of the longest inter-connected electrical networks in the world. Each operator uses a workstation with seven screens in an active control room environment, with a large coordination screen to show information and enable collaboration between different control centers. Cognitive load was assessed during both training scenarios and regular control room operations via the integration of subjective and physiological measures. Eye-tracking glasses were also used to analyze (...) the operators gaze behavior. Our results indicate that different events, different participants for the same session, and different periods of one session all have varying degrees of cognitive load. The system design was observed to be inefficient in some situations and to have an adverse affect on cognitive load. In critical situations for instance, operator collaboration was high and the coordination screen was used heavily when collaborating between two control centers, yet integration with the system could be improved. Eye tracking data analysis showed that the layout of applications across the seven screens was not optimal for many tasks. Improved layout strategies, potential combination of applications, redesigning of certain applications, and linked views are all recommended for further exploration in addition to improved integration of procedures and linking alarms to visual cues. (shrink)

This study investigated the impact of online product reviews on consumers purchasing decisions by using eye-tracking. The research methodology involved development of a conceptual framework of online product review and purchasing intention through the moderation role of gender and visual attention in comments, and empirical investigation into the region of interest analysis of consumers fixation during the purchase decision process and behavioral analysis. The results showed that consumers’ attention to negative comments was significantly greater than that to (...) positive comments, especially for female consumers. Furthermore, the study identified a significant correlation between the visual browsing behavior of consumers and their purchase intention. It also found that consumers were not able to identify false comments. The current study provides a deep understanding of the underlying mechanism of how online reviews influence shopping behavior, reveals the effect of gender on this effect for the first time and explains it from the perspective of attentional bias, which is essential for the theory of online consumer behavior. Specifically, the different effects of consumers’ attention to negative comments seem to be moderated through gender with female consumers’ attention to negative comments being significantly greater than to positive ones. These findings suggest that practitioners need to pay particular attention to negative comments and resolve them promptly through the customization of product/service information, taking into consideration consumer characteristics, including gender. (shrink)