EasyGaze:Hybrid eye tracking approach for handheld mobile devices

Background Eye-tracking technology for mobile devices has made significant progress.However,owing to limited computing capacity and the complexity of context,the conventional image feature-based technology cannot extract features accurately,thus affecting the performance.Methods This study proposes a novel approach by combining appearance-and feature-based eye-tracking methods.Face and eye region detections were conducted to obtain features that were used as inputs to the appearance model to detect the feature points.The feature points were used to generate feature vectors,such as corner center-pupil center,by which the gaze fixation coordinates were calculated.Results To obtain feature vectors with the best performance,we compared different vectors under different image resolution and illumination conditions,and the results indicated that the average gaze fixation accuracy was achieved at a visual angle of 1.93°when the image resolution was 96×48 pixels,with light sources illuminating from the front of the eye.Conclusions Compared with the current methods,our method improved the accuracy of gaze fixation and it was more usable.

Implementation System of Human Eye Tracking Algorithm Based on FPGA

With the high-speed development of transportation industry,highway traffic safety has become a considerable problem.Meanwhile,with the development of embedded system and hardware chip,in recent years,human eye detection eye tracking and positioning technology have been more and more widely used in man-machine interaction,security access control and visual detection.In this paper,the high parallelism of FPGA was utilized to realize an elliptical approximate real-time human eye tracking system,which was achieved by the series register structure and random sample consensus(RANSAC),thus improving the speed of image processing without using external memory.Because eye images acquired by the camera often generate a lot of noises due to uneven light and dark background,the preprocessing technologies such as color conversion,image filtering,histogram modification and image sharpening were adopted.In terms of feature extraction of images,the eye tracking algorithm in this paper adopted seven-section rectangular eye tracking characteristic method,which increased a section between the mouth and the nose on the basis of the traditional six-section method,so its recognition accuracy is much higher.It is convenient for the realization of hardware parallel system in FPGA.Finally,aiming at the accuracy and real-time performance of the design system,a more comprehensive simulation test was carried out.The human eye tracking system was verified on DE2-115 multimedia development platform,and the performance of VGA(resolution:640×480)images of 8-bit grayscale was tested.The results showed that the detection speed of this system was about 47 frames per second under the condition that the detection rate of human face(front face,no inclination)was 93%,which reached the real-time detection level.Additionally,the accuracy of eye tracking based on FPGA system was more than 95%,and it has achieved ideal results in real-time performance and robustness.

Eye Tracking during High Speed Navigation at Sea--Field Trial in Search of Navigational Gaze Behaviour

Purpose: Professional high speed sea navigational procedures are based on turn points, courses, dangers and steering cues in the environment. Since navigational aids have become less expensive and due to the fact that electronic sea charts can be integrated with both radar and transponder information, it may be assumed that traditional navigation by using paper based charts and radar will play a less significant role in the future, especially among less experienced navigators. Possible navigational differences between experienced and non-experienced boat drivers is thus of interest with regards to their use of navigational aids. It may be assumed that less experienced navigators rely too much on the information given by the electronic sea chart, despite the fact that it is based on GPS information that can be questioned, especially in littoral waters close to land. Method: This eye tracking study investigates gaze behaviour from 16 ex perienced and novice boat drivers during high speed navigation at sea. Results: The results show that the novice drivers look at objects that are close to themselves, like instrumentation, while the experienced look more at objects far away from the boat. This is in accordance with previous research on car drivers. Further, novice boat drivers used the electronic navigational aids to a larger extent than the experienced, especially during high speed conditions. The experienced drivers focused much of their attention on objects outside the boat. Conclusions: The findings verify that novice boat drivers tend to rely on electronic navigational aids. Experienced drivers presumably use the navigational aids to verify what they have observed in the surrounding environment and further use the paper based sea chart to a larger extent than the novice drivers.

Eye-Tracking Based Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis Using Chaotic Butterfly Optimization with Deep Learning Model

Autism spectrum disorder(ASD)can be defined as a neurodevelopmental condition or illness that can disturb kids who have heterogeneous characteristics,like changes in behavior,social disabilities,and difficulty communicating with others.Eye tracking(ET)has become a useful method to detect ASD.One vital aspect of moral erudition is the aptitude to have common visual attention.The eye-tracking approach offers valuable data regarding the visual behavior of children for accurate and early detection.Eye-tracking data can offer insightful information about the behavior and thought processes of people with ASD,but it is important to be aware of its limitations and to combine it with other types of data and assessment techniques to increase the precision of ASD detection.It operates by scanning the paths of eyes for extracting a series of eye projection points on images for examining the behavior of children with autism.The purpose of this research is to use deep learning to identify autistic disorders based on eye tracking.The Chaotic Butterfly Optimization technique is used to identify this specific disturbance.Therefore,this study develops an ET-based Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis using Chaotic Butterfly Optimization with Deep Learning(ETASD-CBODL)technique.The presented ETASDCBODL technique mainly focuses on the recognition of ASD via the ET and DL models.To accomplish this,the ETASD-CBODL technique exploits the U-Net segmentation technique to recognize interested AREASS.In addition,the ETASD-CBODL technique employs Inception v3 feature extraction with CBO algorithm-based hyperparameter optimization.Finally,the long-shorttermmemory(LSTM)model is exploited for the recognition and classification of ASD.To assess the performance of the ETASD-CBODL technique,a series of simulations were performed on datasets from the figure-shared data repository.The experimental values of accuracy(99.29%),precision(98.78%),sensitivity(99.29%)and specificity(99.29%)showed a better performance in the ETASD-CBODL technique over recent approaches.

Comparison of Anticancer Drug Preparation Techniques between Chemotherapy Specialist Pharmacists and Non-Chemotherapy Pharmacists Using Eye-Tracking Techniques

Anticancer drug preparation by pharmacists is a critical task directly related to medical incidents. This study examined the factors influencing medical errors in chemotherapy, that is, errors by specialist pharmacists (CPh) and pharmacists in other departments (NCPh), by measuring their gaze during the preparation of anticancer drugs. The eye-tracking results showed that the gazing time of NCPh was significantly longer than that of CPh for items such as “preparation of a closed-system device” and “preparation of the syringe” and all preparation times (P < 0.05). The NCPh were not assigned to prepare drugs on a regular basis, indicating their lack of familiarity with the process. There was no significant difference in gaze ratio between CPh and NCPh. This outcome was suggested to be a result of the use of an anticancer drug preparation support system. The results for the pupil diameter variation rate showed that NCPh were significantly more mydriatic in the “mixing injections” category than CPh. However, CPh tended to be more mydriatic in the “checking” category. CPh exhibited a smooth workflow and focused on the important items to be checked. This study showed that the differences in procedure flow and concentration points may lead to errors. Furthermore, the results are of interest from the perspective of medical incident prevention. They will be useful in identifying potential human factors, such as where the pharmacist focuses their attention by measuring eye movements.

Perceptual complexity of soil-landscape maps: a user evaluation of color organization in legend designs using eye tracking

We compared the ability of two legend designs on a soil-landscape map to efficiently and effectively support map reading tasks with the goal of better understanding how the design choices affect user performance.Developing such knowledge is essential to design effective interfaces for digital earth systems.One of the two legends contained an alphabetical ordering of categories,while the other used a perceptual grouping based on the Munsell color space.We tested the two legends for 4 tasks with 20 experts(in geography-related domains).We analyzed traditional usability metrics and participants’eye movements to identify the possible reasons behind their success and failure in the experimental tasks.Surprisingly,an overwhelming majority of the participants failed to arrive at the correct responses for two of the four tasks,irrespective of the legend design.Furthermore,participants’prior knowledge of soils and map interpretation abilities led to interesting performance differences between the two legend types.We discuss how participant background might have played a role in performance and why some tasks were particularly hard to solve despite participants’relatively high levels of experience in map reading.Based on our observations,we caution soil cartographers to be aware of the perceptual complexity of soil-landscape maps.

Eye tracking and child sexual offenders:a systematic review

Eye tracking is used in sexology to identify attractiveness and sexual desire indirectly.This systematic review summarizes results of works that have used eye tracking to analyse paedophilic interest in order to investigate its potential as a useful forensic tool.Six studies met the inclusion criteria.Five of them concerned a large study project and used approximatively the same sample of paedophiles(inpatients),forensic patients(without a sexual interest in children)and healthy controls to make comparisons between the three groups.One study added 11 self-declared paedophiles(outpatients)for a comparison between inpatient paedophiles,outpatient paedophiles and controls(healthy and forensic inpatients).One study compared a group of child sexual offenders with non-offenders.All studies used static pictures of male and female subjects at different pubertal stages.Some studies divided every picture into a different area of interest.Dependent variables used are fixation latency(early attention)and relative fixation time,(later attention).Each study identified significant differences between the paedophile group versus other groups:shorter fixation latency on child pictures,longer fixation time on child pictures and number of fixation most important on child pictures.Two scores(age preference index and attentional control index)showed hight and/or moderate sensitivity and specificity.Although the results suggest the eye tracking can discriminate between paedophile interest and non-paedophile interest,there are too few studies on this specific topic and further research is needed with larger and different sample,carried out by different research teams.If these findings were confirmed,it remains unclear as to their impact in a forensic context when presented openly in Court.

Adaptive navigation assistance based on eye movement features in virtual reality

Background Navigation assistance is essential for users when roaming virtual reality scenes;however,the traditional navigation method requires users to manually request a map for viewing,which leads to low immersion and poor user experience.Methods To address this issue,we first collected data on who required navigation assistance in a virtual reality environment,including various eye movement features,such as gaze fixation,pupil size,and gaze angle.Subsequently,we used the boosting-based XGBoost algorithm to train a prediction model and finally used it to predict whether users require navigation assistance in a roaming task.Results After evaluating the performance of the model,the accuracy,precision,recall,and F1-score of our model reached approximately 95%.In addition,by applying the model to a virtual reality scene,an adaptive navigation assistance system based on the real-time eye movement data of the user was implemented.Conclusions Compared with traditional navigation assistance methods,our new adaptive navigation assistance method could enable the user to be more immersive and effective while roaming in a virtual reality(VR)environment.

Navigation technology/eye-tracking in ophthalmology:principles,applications and benefits-a narrative review

Navigation technology in ophthalmology,colloquially called“eye-tracking”,has been applied to various areas of eye care.This approach encompasses motion-based navigation technology in both ophthalmic imaging and treatment.For instance,modern imaging instruments use a real-time eye-tracking system,which helps to reduce motion artefacts and increase signal-to-noise ratio in imaging acquisition such as optical coherence tomography(OCT),microperimetry,and fluorescence and color imaging.Navigation in ophthalmic surgery has been firstly applied in laser vision corrective surgery and spread to involve navigated retinal photocoagulation,and positioning guidance of intraocular lenses(IOL)during cataract surgery.It has emerged as one of the most reliable representatives of technology as it continues to transform surgical interventions into safer,more standardized,and more predictable procedures with better outcomes.Eye-tracking is essential in refractive surgery with excimer laser ablation.Using this technology for cataract surgery in patients with high preoperative astigmatism has produced better therapeutic outcomes.Navigated retinal laser has proven to be safer and more accurate compared to the use of conventional slit lamp lasers.Eye-tracking has also been used in imaging diagnostics,where it is essential for proper alignment of captured zones of interest and accurate follow-up imaging.This technology is not routinely discussed in the ophthalmic literature even though it has been truly impactful in our clinical practice and represents a small revolution in ophthalmology.

Eye Movement Modeling Examples as a Teaching Tool for Epidural Block

Introduction: Video examples with task demonstrations by experts, with the expert’s eye movements superimposed on the task, are known as “eye movement modeling examples” (EMME). We performed this study to evaluate if there were improvements in the performance of anesthesia novice trainees when executing the epidural technique after an EMME of epidural block procedure. Methods: We developed an eye movement modeling example (EMME) from eye tracking recordings made by experienced anesthesiologists with more than 20 years of experience. Forty-two PGY3 anesthesia trainees who had never previously performed an epidural block were randomized to receive (study group) or not receive (control group) the EMME video before their institutional training. All the trainees were evaluated every 10 epidural blocks until the end of the rotation period, by an independent, blinded observer using the Global Rating Scale for Epidural Anesthesia (GRS). Results: Trainees who received the EMME training exhibited more respect for the patient’s tissues (P Discussion: This is the first study that has used the EMME for a practical, clinical teaching purpose on real patients and that has used it as an aid in teaching epidural anesthesia. We demonstrated that inexperienced trainees who received the EMME training improved their proficiency at epidural blocks as compared to those who had no EMME training beforehand. Given this result, we welcome further studies to investigate the impact and the role of EMME on clinical teaching in the field of anesthesia.

Application of Eye Movement Analysis in Landscape Visual Quality Evaluation

The existing methods of landscape visual quality evaluation is mostly based on people's subjective feelings,and the objectivity and scientificity of evaluation results are insufficient.As an important means of experimental psychology,eye movement technology can show great advantages and potential in landscape visual quality evaluation.On the basis of combing and summarizing the relevant literature,based on the explanation of the technical principle of eye movement analysis,the application field,research content,technical methods and other aspects of eye movement analysis were reviewed.The application prospect of eye movement technology in landscape visual quality evaluation was explored to provide theoretical reference for the in-depth evaluation and research of landscape visual quality evaluation theory.

Using eye movements in the dot-probe paradigm to investigate attention bias in illness anxiety disorder

BACKGROUND Illness anxiety disorder(IAD)is a common,distressing,and debilitating condition with the key feature being a persistent conviction of the possibility of having one or more serious or progressive physical disorders.Because eye movements are guided by visual-spatial attention,eye-tracking technology is a comparatively direct,continuous measure of attention direction and speed when stimuli are oriented.Researchers have tried to identify selective visual attention biases by tracking eye movements within dot-probe paradigms because dot-probe paradigm can distinguish these attentional biases more clearly.AIM To examine the association between IAD and biased processing of illness-related information.METHODS A case-control study design was used to record eye movements of individuals with IAD and healthy controls while participants viewed a set of pictures from four categories(illness-related,socially threatening,positive,and neutral images).Biases in initial orienting were assessed from the location of the initial shift in gaze,and biases in the maintenance of attention were assessed from the duration of gaze that was initially fixated on the picture per image category.RESULTS The eye movement of the participants in the IAD group was characterized by an avoidance bias in initial orienting to illness-related pictures.There was no evidence of individuals with IAD spending significantly more time viewing illness-related images compared with other images.Patients with IAD had an attention bias at the early stage and overall attentional avoidance.In addition,this study found that patients with significant anxiety symptoms showed attention bias in the late stages of attention processing.CONCLUSION Illness-related information processing biases appear to be a robust feature of IAD and may have an important role in explaining the etiology and maintenance of the disorder.

Pupil center detection with a single webcam for gaze tracking

This paper presents a user friendly approach to localize the pupil center with a single web camera.Several methods have been proposed to determine the coordinates of the pupil center in an image,but with practical limitations.The proposed method can track the user’s eye movements in real time under normal image resolution and lighting conditions using a regular webcam,without special equipment such as infrared illuminators.After the pre-processing steps used to deal with illumination variations,the pupil center is detected using iterative thresholding by applying geometric constraints.Experimental results show that robustness and speed in determining the pupil’s location in real time for users of various ethnicities,under various lighting conditions,at different distances from the webcam and with standard resolution images.

Subjective experience and visual attention to a historic building:A real-world eyetracking study

The objective of this exploratory study is to discover the relations between visual attention to an architectural work and the subjective experiences produced during its observation.A subjective experience with a building is the specific manner in which an architectural element or the building as a whole are presented to a person.The qualities of the element as how they are perceived and the inner world of the observer are both considered in this subjective experience.The aims of this study are to describe the experience that a building generates in people,pinpoint what has attracted the participant's attention during each view of the building in an itinerary;and understand which aspects of this selected case study have made it an object of attend on.An eye-tracking study was carried out using a portable eye tracker.This tool allowed the participants to walk freely around the exterior of a historic train station in the city of Monterrey,Mexico.Two groups of participants,with routes starting from opposite sides of the building,contemplated it while using the eye tracker.Eye tracking allowed for the identification of the architectural elements that were objects of attention,the lengths of observation,and the points of view from which the elements were observed.Other data collection techniques,such as the think-aloud protocol and a special type of survey,were used to deeply understand the experiences that accompanied the visual exploration of the historic building.Results suggest that the participants observed the different architectural elements for a time that was neither influenced by the route used to explore the building nor the point where that route was initiated.The architectural elements identified as examples of high-quality architecture and perceived as aesthetically pleasing by the participants during the itinerary were observed for longer times.

Analysis of the interactive meaning of journalistic images of the human papillomavirus vaccine and the perceptions of female undergraduate students

Objectives:This paper focuses on the underlying mechanisms of women's perceptions of persuasive visual health information.Methods:In the image viewing process,a separation between the image producer and the image viewer occurs,and the connection between the two is fractured.This mixed method research included modal discourse analysis(coding based on visual grammar theory),an eye tracking experiment,a questionnaire survey,and in-depth semi-structured interviews.The interactive meanings of journalistic images related to the human papillomavirus(HPV)vaccine were identified through four sets of codes.In addition,the perceptions of female viewers were analyzed.Results:In the first set of stimuli,i.e.,the infographic,the female participants focused most of their attention on information about the nine-valent HPV vaccine.An analysis of the interactive meaning of two sets of journalistic pictures,i.e.,fictional pictures and nonfictional pictures,indicated that the image producers did not implement useful viewer involvement strategies to persuade viewers.Furthermore,female viewers focused their attention on the"similar other"during the viewing process,gazing at the patient the longest as the primary area of interest(AOI).Conclusions:The study indicates that the current persuasive visual information about the HPV vaccine needs further improvement due to the high demand for information about HPV from the Chinese female audience.

Robust and High Accuracy Algorithm for Detection of Pupil Images

Recently,many researchers have tried to develop a robust,fast,and accurate algorithm.This algorithm is for eye-tracking and detecting pupil position in many applications such as head-mounted eye tracking,gaze-based human-computer interaction,medical applications(such as deaf and diabetes patients),and attention analysis.Many real-world conditions challenge the eye appearance,such as illumination,reflections,and occasions.On the other hand,individual differences in eye physiology and other sources of noise,such as contact lenses or make-up.The present work introduces a robust pupil detection algorithm with and higher accuracy than the previous attempts for real-time analytics applications.The proposed circular hough transform with morphing canny edge detection for Pupillometery(CHMCEP)algorithm can detect even the blurred or noisy images by using different filtering methods in the pre-processing or start phase to remove the blur and noise and finally the second filtering process before the circular Hough transform for the center fitting to make sure better accuracy.The performance of the proposed CHMCEP algorithm was tested against recent pupil detection methods.Simulations and results show that the proposed CHMCEP algorithm achieved detection rates of 87.11,78.54,58,and 78 according to´Swirski,ExCuSe,Else,and labeled pupils in the wild(LPW)data sets,respectively.These results show that the proposed approach performs better than the other pupil detection methods by a large margin by providing exact and robust pupil positions on challenging ordinary eye pictures.

Comparative eye-tracking evaluation of scatterplots and parallel coordinates

We investigate task performance and reading characteristics for scatterplots(Cartesian coordinates)and parallel coordinates.In a controlled eye-tracking study,we asked 24 participants to assess the relative distance of points in multidimensional space,depending on the diagram type(parallel coordinates or a horizontal collection of scatterplots),the number of data dimensions(2,4,6,or 8),and the relative distance between points(15%,20%,or 25%).For a given reference point and two target points,we instructed participants to choose the target point that was closer to the reference point in multidimensional space.We present a visual scanning model that describes different strategies to solve this retrieval task for both diagram types,and propose corresponding hypotheses that we test using task completion time,accuracy,and gaze positions as dependent variables.Our results show that scatterplots outperform parallel coordinates significantly in 2 dimensions,however,the task was solved more quickly and more accurately with parallel coordinates in 8 dimensions.The eye-tracking data further shows significant differences between Cartesian and parallel coordinates,as well as between different numbers of dimensions.For parallel coordinates,there is a clear trend toward shorter fixations and longer saccades with increasing number of dimensions.Using an area-of-interest(AOI)based approach,we identify different reading strategies for each diagram type:For parallel coordinates,the participants’gaze frequently jumped back and forth between pairs of axes,while axes were rarely focused on when viewing Cartesian coordinates.We further found that participants’attention is biased:toward the center of the whole plot for parallel coordinates and skewed to the center/left side for Cartesian coordinates.We anticipate that these results may support the design of more effective visualizations for multidimensional data.

VETA:Visual eye-tracking analytics for the exploration of gaze patterns and behaviours

Eye tracking is growing in popularity for multiple application areas,yet analysing and exploring the large volume of complex data remains difficult for most users.We present a comprehensive eye tracking visual analytics system to enable the exploration and presentation of eye-tracking data across time and space in an efficient manner.The application allows the user to gain an overview of general patterns and perform deep visual analysis of local gaze exploration.The ability to link directly to the video of the underlying scene allows the visualisation insights to be verified on the fly.The system was motivated by the need to analyse eye-tracking data collected from an‘in the wild’study with energy network operators and has been further evaluated via interviews with 14 eye-tracking experts in multiple domains.Results suggest that,thanks to state-of-the-art visualisation techniques and by providing context with videos,our system could enable an improved analysis of eye-tracking data through interactive exploration,facilitating comparison between different participants or conditions,thus enhancing the presentation of complex data analysis to non-experts.This research paper provides four contributions:(1)analysis of a motivational use case demonstrating the need for rich visual-analytics workflow tools for eye-tracking data;(2)a highly dynamic system to visually explore and present complex eye-tracking data;(3)insights from our applied use case evaluation and interviews with experienced users demonstrating the potential for the system and visual analytics for the wider eye-tracking community.

Fashion and Brand Awareness: An Evidence-Based Approach to the Analysis of Distinctive Elements in Communication

Brand identity is a key topic in fashion design and communication. It relies on several tangible and intangible elements, such as recognisability of trademarks and styles, of materials and processing details, on storytelling, values, testimonials, company history and so on. The evolution of communication strategies in the digital era, and of globalised markets, demands rational, evidence-based management of the public image of brands. This article offers a theoretical discussion of the structural elements which play a part in establishing the public identity of fashion brands in the era of digital communication, and an innovative approach to the evidence-based investigation of the identity of a number of fashion brands as perceived by customers. The approach proposed here is based on a mix of interviews exploring subjective brand awareness, and objective monitoring of visual attention through eye-tracking. The article also summarises findings obtained by applying this approach to several subjects exposed to communication artefacts produced by fashion brands in order to obtain some information of general interest regarding the factors that influence customers’ mental models.

Changes in Gaze Behavior during the Learning of the Epidural Technique with a Simulator in Anesthesia Novices

Background: Current literature demonstrates the ability of eye tracking to provide reliable quantitative data as an objective assessment tool, with potential applications to medical and surgical training to improve performance. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in gaze behavior in anesthesia novice trainees when performing a simulated epidural technique before and after a hands-on training on the epidural simulator. Methods: We enrolled 48 novice trainees who had never previously performed an epidural block. After a standardized learning module, each trainee practiced the epidural procedure on the epidural simulator while wearing a pair of eye tracking glasses (Tobii Pro Glasses 50 Hz wearable wireless eye tracker). After this baseline recording, each trainee spent two hours practicing with the epidural simulator and afterwards once again performed the eye tracking epidural procedure. Eye tracking metrics and epidural learning (duration of the procedure and number of attempts) before and after the simulated practice were recorded. Results: The duration of the epidural procedure and of the epidural needle advancement phase (P < 0.05) and the number of epidural attempts (P < 0.001) were reduced after the tutorial. When considering the eye tracking metrics, after the tutorial, the number of visit counts decreased and their duration increased (P < 0.05). The number of epidural needle insertions (additional attempts) showed a significant positive correlation with the visits number (aOR = 2.02 (95% CI = 1.26 - 3.55;P = 0.008)) and a significant negative correlation with the visit duration (aOR = 0.65 (95% CI = 0.39 - 0.99;P = 0.05)). Conclusion: We observed significant changes in gaze behavior associated with increased performance during the epidural technique learning with a simulator in anesthesia trainees who had never previously performed an epidural block. These results may create a prototype for future studies on eye tracking technique as a teaching and evaluating tool in simulation.