Vision for Action: How and why eye-tracking informs about performance in both real and virtual worlds

Tutorial including hands on demonstrations of Tobii eye-tracking technology.

Schedule: Friday 7th June 2018, 10:00 - 11:30, G35

Instructors:

Dr Tim Holmes, Director of Research, Tobii Pro Insight UK Ltd.  Tim is a neuroscientist with 12 years of eye-tracking experience and was a co-founder of the 2-day Real World Eye-Tracking Workshop, now in its 4th year at Royal Holloway, University of London where he is an Honorary Research Associate.  He has eye-tracked trainee doctors, drivers, jet pilots, commodities brokers, cricketers and many more, and led the development team for AcuityVR, the first automated eye-tracking analysis platform in full 3D virtual reality which was recently acquired by Tobii, the world’s leading eye-tracking company.

Laurens van den Broek, Researcher, Tobii Pro Insight UK Ltd.  Laurens is a research and innovation specialist with more than 10 years of eye-tracking experience working as a researcher for Tobii, first in Sweden and now in the UK.  He has eye-tracked literally thousands of participants and analysed their behaviour for clients ranging from FMCG’s and brands, to web and app designers and has many years’ experience of training customers in eye-tracking methodologies.

Description:

It was once believed that vision was a passive process and the brain simply responded to the images received through the eyes.  Intuitively this does not feel true, and countless studies suggest that the both the task being performed and motivations of the person performing the task modulate attention and significantly influence eye-movements.  In this tutorial, we will review the correlation between task and visual attention and how tools like eye-tracking can be used to generate both qualitative and quantitative insights into behaviour.  From early research showing that eye-movements precede action to more recent studies highlighting the differences between novice and expert performance and we will discuss how the latest technologies can be applied to understanding and optimisation of training and performance in both real and virtual environments across a wide range of fields including sports, manufacturing, medical and automotive.  Through a series of interactive, hands-on demonstrations using state-of-the-art real-world and virtual reality implementations, we will show the ease with which eye-tracking can be applied and talk through steps and tools that can be used to baseline performance, measure improvement and even train others.  Finally we will discuss the integration of eye-tracking with other performance related tools such as motion capture, electroencephalography (EEG) and biometric sensors for galvanic skin response (GSR), heart-rate variability (HRV) and more.

WHY AT MEASURING BEHAVIOUR 2018: Eye-tracking is not a new technology, but significant advances over the past few years mean that it experiencing growth spurt in interest and application for measuring, and optimising, human performance.  Recent integrations with virtual reality expand its application allowing fully immersive, controlled and replicable scenarios to be benefit from insights into attention, distraction and cognitive load that only eye-tracking can provide.  The increased accessibility to other measurement tools like EEG and biometrics through lower cost consumer versions and fully mobile research grade solutions require the precise identification of visual input to interpret their data