Eye-tracking system

当人们观看一个场景或进行任何其他视觉处理时，他们的眼睛会有系统地移动，短暂地盯着一个特定的位置，然后迅速转移到一个新的位置。因此，任务执行过程中眼睛注视的模式提供了关于心理操作时刻变化的关键信息。例如，当观察者观看谷仓门附近包括章鱼的谷仓场景的图片时，观察者的眼睛迅速移动到异常物体上。如果该运动表明观察者已经检测到异常，并且注意力已经转移到相关位置。由这笔拨款资助的设备将能够详细跟踪人类观察者的眼睛运动序列，并测量每个眼睛注视的持续时间。该设备将用于三个方面的调查。(1)了解关于手动作的知识如何有助于识别可操作的物体(例如，工具)或理解涉及这些物体的句子。例如，跟踪显示四种不同手形的显示器上的眼睛注视，将提供有关在听一句话时哪些手的动作被激活的信息。这项工作将提高我们对与识别和操纵物体相关的神经缺陷的理解。我(2)了解控制不同任务之间快速转换的过程，这些任务需要从一组相互竞争的刺激中选择目标视觉刺激。例如，在实验室版本的现代“平视”显示器中，印刷的单词叠加在物体的线条上，观察者被提示阅读单词或识别物体。在这些任务之间进行切换是困难的，眼动模式将提供有关如何更有效地进行成功任务切换的信息。(3)评估先前观看过的自然场景的记忆对这些场景重复呈现的视觉检查的影响，例如，帮助确定如何有效地检测场景中的变化。这些眼球跟踪方法的应用将为管理与环境成功互动的基本认知操作提供新的见解。

When people view a scene or do any other visual processing, their eyes move systematically, briefly fixating a particular location and then quickly shifting to a new location.  Consequently, the pattern of eye fixations during task performance provides crucial information about moment by moment changes in mental operations.  For example, when an observer views a picture of a barnyard scene that includes an octopus near the barn door, the observer's eyes quickly move to that anomalous object.  That movement indicates that the observer has detected an anomaly and that attention has shifted to the relevant location.  The equipment funded by this grant will enable detailed tracking of the sequence of eye movements made by human observers and measurement of each eye fixation duration.  The equipment will be used in three lines of investigation.  (1) Learn how knowledge about hand actions contributes to identifying manipulable objects (e.g., tools) or understanding sentences referring to those objects.  For example, tracking eye fixations directed toward a display showing four different hand shapes will provide information about which hand actions are activated while listening to a sentence like "Joe used the calculator".  This work will improve our understanding of neurological deficits associated with identification and manipulation of objects.  (2) Understand processes that control rapid shifting between different tasks requiring selection of a target visual stimulus from among a set of competing stimuli.  For example, in a laboratory variant of modern "heads-up" displays, a printed word is superimposed on a line-drawing of an object and observers are cued either to read the word or identify the object.  Switching between these tasks is difficult and eye movement patterns will to provide information about how successful task switches can be made more efficiently.  (3) Assess the influence of memory for previously viewed natural scenes on the visual inspection of a repeated presentation of those scenes, helping to determine, for example, how changes in scenes can be efficiently detected.  These applications of eye-tracking methods will provide new insights into basic cognitive operations that govern successful interaction with the environment.