Task-dependence in scene perception: Head unrestrained viewing using mobile eye-tracking

TL;DR

This study uses mobile eye-tracking to explore how task instructions influence eye movements during scene perception in a more natural viewing setup, revealing task-dependent differences in gaze behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates that mobile eye-tracking enables studying task-dependent eye movement differences in a naturalistic setting, bridging laboratory and real-world scene perception research.

Findings

Differences in temporal and spatial eye-movement parameters across tasks

Bias to fixate near image center varies with task

Mobile eye-tracking supports detailed analysis of task effects in natural viewing

Abstract

Real-world scene perception is typically studied in the laboratory using static picture viewing with restrained head position. Consequently, the transfer of results obtained in this paradigm to real-word scenarios has been questioned. The advancement of mobile eye-trackers and the progress in image processing, however, permit a more natural experimental setup that, at the same time, maintains the high experimental control from the standard laboratory setting. We investigated eye movements while participants were standing in front of a projector screen and explored images under four specific task instructions. Eye movements were recorded with a mobile eye-tracking device and raw gaze data was transformed from head-centered into image-centered coordinates. We observed differences between tasks in temporal and spatial eye-movement parameters and found that the bias to fixate images near the center differed between tasks. Our results demonstrate that current mobile eye-tracking technology and a highly controlled design support the study of fine-scaled task dependencies in an experimental setting that permits more natural viewing behavior than the static picture viewing paradigm.