How do we use our eyes in our daily lives? What are we watching when we drive a car, walk in the woods or wash our hands? Until recently, visual perception research took place only in laboratories and was concentrated on the mechanics of visual perception, and not at the actual process. But now, Jeff Pelz, a researcher at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), has developed several new portable eye-tracking devices. RIT says "he's taking eye-tracking research to next level." Today, Pelz is working on how deaf students process information in the classroom or how the human eye perceives high-speed motion on large-scale LCD monitors. I've assembled a photo gallery for you about this research. Read more.
First, here is the introduction of the RIT news release.
How do we use our eyes to perceive the world? Could eye movements be windows into human cognition?
Scientist Jeff Pelz thinks so. The director of the Visual Perception Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology studies the link between eye movements and cognition. His latest research, in collaboration with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), focuses on how deaf students process information in the classroom. Another project tracks how the human eye perceives high-speed motion on large-scale LCD monitors for Sharp Research Laboratory of America.
Here are some details about these portable eyetracking systems.
"The system we’ve developed at RIT is unique in its ability to automatically monitor even complex tasks in a large range of environments," Pelz says. "We can study students in a classroom or people finding their way in the woods."
The wearable eye tracker extends the laboratory to the real world by recording what people look at and how their eyes move as they perform a specified task, such as attending to a lecture in a classroom, driving a car, walking or playing racquetball. In other words, the device tracks how eye movements support perception and what people pay attention to in order to gather the information they need to perform everyday activities.
we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
Two eye-tracking models unique to RIT have different capabilities: one performs on-line processing in real time within any indoor setting outside the laboratory; the second model fits neatly in a backpack and can be worn anywhere, even outside. The latter model trades real-time capability for lightness; data recorded outside is later processed in the lab.
And now, let's look at images.
The two pictures above show the 3rd-generation wearable eyetracker and backpack on the left, and the headgear on the right (Credit: RIT, from this eyetracking page).
The images above shows more details about the eyetracker headgear. On the left, you can see that the module above the headband contains the IR illuminator and eye camera, while the visor and scene camera are visible on the right (Credit: RIT).
These pictures, and the ones below, come from this technical paper, "Portable Eyetracking: A Study of Natural Eye Movements" (PDF format, 17 pages, 311 KB).
The sequence of images above shows how a user of this wearable eyetracking system looked while he was washing his hands. Here are the actions he performed in less than 4 seconds: "a) initial fixation on sink, b) 'preview' fixation on soap dispenser, c) wetting hands,d) 'guiding' fixation on soap dispenser, e) reaching toward soap dispenser, f) contact soap dispenser" (Credit: RIT).
Finally, here is the "Pioneer 50" plasma display used with the integrated head and eye system for image display during experiments."
The photographic enthusiast likes to lure us into a darkened room in order to display his slides on a silver screen. Aided by the adaptability of the eye and by the borrowed light from the intense projector bulb, he can achieve those relationships in brightness that will make us dutifully admire the wonderful autumn tints he photographed on his latest trip. As soon as we look at a print of these photographs by day, the light seems to go out of them. It is one of the miracles of art that the same does not happen there. The paintings in our galleries are seen one day in bright sunshine and another day in the dim light of a rainy afternoon, yet they remain the same paintings, ever faithful, ever convincing. To a marvelous extent they carry their own light within. For their truth is not that of a perfect replica, it is the truth of art.
—E. H. Gombrich (b. 1909)
Fascinating study if you ask me.
Sources: Rochester Institute of Technology news release, March 23, 2005; and various pages at its Visual Perception Laboratory
Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Displays
Technology
Vision and Visualization
Wearable.