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Concept
Eye tracking
Summary
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research on the visual system, in psychology, in psycholinguistics, marketing, as an input device for human-computer interaction, and in product design.
In addition, eye trackers are increasingly being used for assistive and rehabilitative applications such as controlling wheelchairs, robotic arms, and prostheses. There are several methods for measuring eye movement, with the most popular variant using video images to extract eye position. Other methods use search coils or are based on the electrooculogram.
In the 1800s, studies of eye movement were made using direct observations. For example, Louis Émile Javal observed in 1879 that reading does not involve a smooth sweeping of the eyes along the text, as previously assumed, but a series of short stops (called fixations) and quick saccades. This observation raised important questions about reading, questions which were explored during the 1900s: On which words do the eyes stop? For how long? When do they regress to already seen words?
Edmund Huey built an early eye tracker, using a sort of contact lens with a hole for the pupil. The lens was connected to an aluminum pointer that moved in response to the movement of the eye. Huey studied and quantified regressions (only a small proportion of saccades are regressions), and he showed that some words in a sentence are not fixated.
The first non-intrusive eye-trackers were built by Guy Thomas Buswell in Chicago, using beams of light that were reflected on the eye, then recording on film. Buswell made systematic studies into reading and picture viewing.
In the 1950s, Alfred L. Yarbus performed eye tracking research, and his 1967 book is often quoted. He showed that the task given to a subject has a very large influence on the subject's eye movement. He also wrote about the relation between fixations and interest:
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