When driving a vehicle, people use the central vision both to plan ahead and monitor their performance feedback
(research by Donges, 1978 [1], and after). Discussion is ongoing if making eye movements do more than gathering
information. Moving eyes may also prepare the following body movements like steering.
Different paradigms exist to explore vision in driving. Our perspective was to quantify eye movements and fixation
patterns of different proficiency individuals, a driving learner, a novice, an experienced driver and a European level
car racer. Thus for safety reasons we started by asking them to follow a video tour through a known city, remote
from an infrared eye tracker sampling at 250 Hz.
We report that gaze strategy of an experienced driver differs qualitatively from that of an automobile sports master.
Quantitative differences only were found between the latter and a driving learner or a novice driver.
Experience in a motor action provides skills different from sports training. We are aiming at testing this finding in
real world driving.
We recorded eye movements of eight elite junior basketball players. We hypothesized that a more stable gaze is
correlated to a better shot rate. Upon preliminary testing we invited male juniors whose eyes could be reliably tracked in
a game situation. To these ends, we used a head-mounted video-based eye tracker. The participants had no record of
ocular or other health issues. No significant differences were found between shots made with and without the tracker
cap, Paired samples t-test yielded p= .130 for the far and p=..900 > .050 for the middle range shots.
The players made 40 shots from common far and middle range locations, 5 and 4 meters respectively for aged 14 years
As expected, a statistical correlation was found between gaze fixation (in milliseconds) for the far and middle range shot
rates, r=.782, p=.03. Notably, juniors who fixated longer before a shot had a more stable fixation or a lower gaze
dispersion (in tracker's screen pixels), r=-.786, p=.02. This finding was augmented by the observation that the gaze
dispersion while aiming at the basket was less (i.e., gaze more stable) in those who were more likely to score. We
derived a regression equation linking fixation duration to shot success.
We advocate infra-red eye tracking as a means to monitor player selection and training success.
We report that pages with color illustrations elicit more homogeneous duration of fixations in 12 elementary school
children. For six first graders, we compared the reading of the color cover and a greyscale illustrated text page of an abcbook.
For six second grade pupils, we demonstrated a color and a greyscale fairytale book page. The fixations we
recorded are concordant with the duration for preschoolers reported elsewhere. Average duration of fixations on a page
with color elements are shorter than on greyscale ones, 425 (SE=13.4) and 461 (18.3) ms, respectively. The correlation
analysis lends support that a color page is processed differently than its greyscale version. Fixation duration for color and
greyscale condition was correlated neither for text (r=.567, p=.241) nor for images (r=.517, p=.294) for the second
graders. Our research suggests that color elements on textbook pages encourage emergent readers to perform better in
acquisition.
Eye movement research of reading has been done on a battery of eye-tracking setups during last decades. We compared
reading data of the same group of six students, their eyes were tracked by a video-based helmet-mounted system with the
data sampling frequency of 50 Hz and a setup with a chin-rest at 240 Hz. We found that not only the number of fixations
may decrease after reading practice, but so does also the mean duration of fixations. In spite of the short duration of
saccades, their distributions and changes in them are similarly reported in the two experimental conditions. Lack of
significant correlation in the HED data testifies to the result variability due to measurement technique. We conclude that
the head-free setup is applicable in reading research but has insufficient precision to track changes in reading patterns.
Research of eye movements in reading textbooks suggests that reading the Cyrillic-based Russian language differs from
reading the extended Latin-based Latvian texts. Ten bilingual students were asked to start reading a book passage in
Latvian and to continue reading the text in Russian. Key parameters in information processing have been analyzed. Even
though the difference in duration of fixations does not reach statistical significance, saccade size and regression rate are
smaller in Russian.
As people read texts, their points of gaze can be described either as a sequence or as a pattern of dots. If reading fixations are visualized as a pattern and their duration is graphically attributed to the 3rd dimension, image processing techniques can be employed to describe individual reading styles. Two reader groups of text editors and of University students were matching according to parametric tests. Yet they appeared to have marked inter-subject variability of fixation distribution when individual cases were considered. To illustrate this, we applied a simple "Coulomb law" - like model that takes both fixation duration and spacing into account. Further the image entropy filter was shown to distinguish the readers by the extreme value points. Statistical averaging can level out differences in reading patterns that appear by image processing techniques.
A model of human eye for experiments in vision research has been developed using PLZT ceramics. This artificial eye allows to simulate light scattering caused by cataract in the eye lens. Light scattering of a composite eye lens of the model depends on the electric field applied to a transparent electrooptic PLZT ceramics plate that is attached directly to the lens. The image degradation in such a model eye at various degrees of scattering is studied observing and recording the contrast of images on the retinal plane created by standard test objects with different spatial frequency or by a He-Ne laser source passing a diffractive transparent placed before the eye.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.