Using a heatmap is a straightforward method to quickly visualize which elements attract more attention than others. The red, yellow, and green colors represent in descending order the amount of gaze points that were directed towards parts of the image. They are typically displayed as a color gradient overlay on the presented image or stimulus.

Heatmaps are visualizations which show the general distribution of gaze points.

The reasons why this happens can be more difficult to decipher, but it provides a starting point for understanding which aspects of a scene best capture and sustain this attention. The amount of fixations or gaze points that are directed towards a certain part of an image (relative to other parts) shows that more visual attention has been directed there. However, there can be catch-up saccades if the object is moving too fast or is too unpredictable.Ĭheck out: Gaze Mapping in Advanced Eye Tracking Research Here, we through smooth pursuit, without any saccadic movement. Trained readers have a higher visual span, allowing them to cover more text with fewer fixations.īy contrast, when we watch a distant car driving by, our eye movements are quite different. The term “visual span” refers to how many words we can read before and after the currently fixated word. We lock our eyes towards every 7-9 letters ( although this of course depends on the font type and size). When we read, for example, our eyes don’t travel smoothly. The eye movements between fixations are generally referred to as saccades. Fixations are excellent measures of visual attention, and research in this field has been continually growing. If a series of gaze points is very close – in time and / or space – this gaze cluster constitutes a fixation, denoting a period where the eyes are locked towards an object. If your eye tracker collects data with a sampling rate of 60 Hz, you will end up with 60 individual gaze points per second. Gaze points show what the eyes are looking at. When we talk about eye tracking, fixations and gaze points are the basic output measures of interest and often the most used terms.

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