MRI: Acquisition of a Gaze-Contingent Eye-Tracking System

在重大研究仪器公司的支持下，眼睛跟踪系统(SR Research Eyelink 1000 Plus)将被收购。该项目建立在德雷克大学(爱荷华州得梅因)由一名视觉认知研究人员和六名决策科学研究人员组成的跨学科团队的基础上。通过整合视觉认知领域的成熟技术，该系统使团队(经济学、营销学、会计学、精算学、信息管理)中的决策科学研究人员能够以比决策科学研究领域通常使用的眼球跟踪方法更精细的分辨率来检查决策过程中涉及的认知机制。该系统允许研究人员研究在有意识反应之前运行的信息处理机制。该项目的设计不仅是为了让学生更容易地接触到视觉认知研究的真实应用，也是为了向决策科学领域的学生介绍一种科学的方法来处理通过系统的实证调查获得的新数据。由于决策科学特别关注个人如何根据可用信息做出最佳选择，一些决策科学家专门研究预先存在的数据。研究小组还认识到，通过单一部门招收学生到研究实验室的流行方法在接触代表性较低的学生群体方面存在局限性。为了促进多样性、公平性和包容性，建立了多种机制来招募和支持广泛的学生。本项目追求的问题包括(1)一个人在记忆保持过程中可以施加多大的注意力控制(视觉认知)，(2)不同的呈现营养信息的方式如何塑造一个人的食物选择决策过程(营销)，(3)缺乏机会如何影响一个人的认知机制，与资源稀缺不同(经济学：贫困心理学)，(4)一个流行的调查方法(即，选择实验)可以通过强大的感知和认知操作进行优化(环境经济学)，(5)自愿披露的财务信息的可视特征如何将投资者被误导的机会降至最低(会计)，(6)当个人倾向于停止处理大量披露信息时，以及难以理解的部分的可视化将如何简化人们对产品的理解(精算学)，以及(7)如何在电子商务环境下提高关键信息的搜索效率(信息管理)。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With the support from Major Research Instrumentation, the eye-tracking system (SR Research EyeLink 1000 Plus) will be acquired. The project is built upon the interdisciplinary team of one visual cognition researcher and six decision science researchers at Drake University (Des Moines, Iowa). By integrating the well-established techniques in the visual cognition field, the system enables decision science researchers in the team (economics, marketing, accounting, actuarial science, information management) to examine cognitive mechanisms involved in decision-making processes with a finer resolution than eye-tracking methods typically employed in the fields of decision science research. The system allows researchers to investigate information-processing mechanisms that operate prior to conscious response. The project is designed not only to make real-world application of visual cognition research more accessible to students, but also to introduce students in the decision science field to a scientific approach of dealing with novel data acquired through systematic empirical investigations. Because decision science is uniquely concerned with how individuals make optimal choices based on available information, some decision scientists work exclusively with pre-existing data. The research team also recognizes that popular methods of recruiting students to the research lab through a single department has its limitation to reach out to underrepresented student populations. To promote diversity, equity and inclusion, multiple mechanisms to recruit and support a wide range of students are built in.The questions pursued in the present project range across (1) how much attentional control one can exert during memory maintenance (visual cognition), (2) how different ways of presenting the nutrition information shapes one's decision-making process of food choice (marketing), (3) how the lack of opportunities affects one's cognitive mechanisms differently from resource scarcity (economics: psychology of poverty), (4) how a popular survey method (i.e., the choice experiment) can be optimized with powerful perceptual and cognitive manipulations (environmental economics), (5) how visual features of the voluntarily disclosed financial information can minimize the chance that the investors can be misled (accounting), (6) when individuals tend to stop processing the massive amount of disclosure information, and how visualization of the difficult-to-understand section would ease one's comprehension of the product (actuarial science), and (7) how search efficiency of the crucial information can be enhanced in the e-commerce context (information management).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.