Automated areas of interest analysis for usability studies of tangible screen-based user interfaces using mobile eye tracking

Author(s):  
M. Batliner ◽  
S. Hess ◽  
C. Ehrlich-Adám ◽  
Q. Lohmeyer ◽  
M. Meboldt

AbstractThe user's gaze can provide important information for human–machine interaction, but the analysis of manual gaze data is extremely time-consuming, inhibiting wide adoption in usability studies. Existing methods for automated areas of interest (AOI) analysis cannot be applied to tangible products with a screen-based user interface (UI), which have become ubiquitous in everyday life. The objective of this paper is to present and evaluate a method to automatically map the user's gaze to dynamic AOIs on tangible screen-based UIs based on computer vision and deep learning. This paper presents an algorithm for automated Dynamic AOI Mapping (aDAM), which allows the automated mapping of gaze data recorded with mobile eye tracking to the predefined AOIs on tangible screen-based UIs. The evaluation of the algorithm is performed using two medical devices, which represent two extreme examples of tangible screen-based UIs. The different elements of aDAM are examined for accuracy and robustness, as well as the time saved compared to manual mapping. The break-even point for an analyst's effort for aDAM compared to manual analysis is found to be 8.9 min gaze data time. The accuracy and robustness of both the automated gaze mapping and the screen matching indicate that aDAM can be applied to a wide range of products. aDAM allows, for the first time, automated AOI analysis of tangible screen-based UIs with AOIs that dynamically change over time. The algorithm requires some additional initial input for the setup and training, but analyzed gaze data duration and effort is only determined by computation time and does not require any additional manual work thereafter. The efficiency of the approach has the potential for a broader adoption of mobile eye tracking in usability testing for the development of new products and may contribute to a more data-driven usability engineering process in the future.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 986
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Gomolka ◽  
Damian Kordos ◽  
Ewa Zeslawska

Recent progress in the development of mobile Eye Tracking (ET) systems shows that there is a demand for modern flexible solutions that would allow for dynamic tracking of objects in the video stream. The paper describes a newly developed tool for work with ET glasses, and its advantages are outlined with the example of a pilot study. A flight task is performed on the FNTP II MCC simulator, and the pilots are equipped with the Mobile Tobii Glasses. The proposed Smart Trainer tool performs dynamic object tracking in a registered video stream, allowing for an interactive definition of Area of Interest (AOI) with blurred contours for the individual cockpit instruments and for the construction of corresponding histograms of pilot attention. The studies are carried out on a group of experienced pilots with a professional pilot CPL(A) license with instrumental flight (Instrument Rating (IR)) certification and a group of pilots without instrumental training. The experimental section shows the differences in the perception of the flight process between two distinct groups of pilots with varying levels in flight training for the ATPL(A) line pilot license. The proposed Smart Trainer tool might be exploited in order to assess and improve the process of training operators of advanced systems with human machine interfaces.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (12) ◽  
pp. 4143
Author(s):  
Michael Barz ◽  
Daniel Sonntag

Processing visual stimuli in a scene is essential for the human brain to make situation-aware decisions. These stimuli, which are prevalent subjects of diagnostic eye tracking studies, are commonly encoded as rectangular areas of interest (AOIs) per frame. Because it is a tedious manual annotation task, the automatic detection and annotation of visual attention to AOIs can accelerate and objectify eye tracking research, in particular for mobile eye tracking with egocentric video feeds. In this work, we implement two methods to automatically detect visual attention to AOIs using pre-trained deep learning models for image classification and object detection. Furthermore, we develop an evaluation framework based on the VISUS dataset and well-known performance metrics from the field of activity recognition. We systematically evaluate our methods within this framework, discuss potentials and limitations, and propose ways to improve the performance of future automatic visual attention detection methods.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Wolf ◽  
Stephan Hess ◽  
David Bachmann ◽  
Quentin Lohmeyer ◽  
Mirko Meboldt

For an in-depth, AOI-based analysis of mobile eye tracking data, a preceding gaze assignment step is inevitable. Current solutions such as manual gaze mapping or marker-based approaches are tedious and not suitable for applications manipulating tangible objects. This makes mobile eye tracking studies with several hours of recording difficult to analyse quantitatively. We introduce a new machine learning-based algorithm, the computational Gaze-Object Mapping (cGOM), that automatically maps gaze data onto respective AOIs. cGOM extends state-of-the-art object detection and segmentation by mask R-CNN with a gaze mapping feature. The new algorithm’s performance is validated against a manual fixation-by-fixation mapping, which is considered as ground truth, in terms of true positive rate (TPR), true negative rate (TNR) and efficiency. Using only 72 training images with 264 labelled object representations, cGOM is able to reach a TPR of approx. 80% and a TNR of 85% compared to the manual mapping. The break-even point is reached at 2 hours of eye tracking recording for the total procedure, respectively 1 hour considering human working time only. Together with a real-time capability of the mapping process after completed training, even hours of eye tracking recording can be evaluated efficiently. (Code and video examples have been made available at: https://gitlab.ethz.ch/pdz/cgom.git)


Author(s):  
Chiara Jongerius ◽  
T. Callemein ◽  
T. Goedemé ◽  
K. Van Beeck ◽  
J. A. Romijn ◽  
...  

AbstractThe assessment of gaze behaviour is essential for understanding the psychology of communication. Mobile eye-tracking glasses are useful to measure gaze behaviour during dynamic interactions. Eye-tracking data can be analysed by using manually annotated areas-of-interest. Computer vision algorithms may alternatively be used to reduce the amount of manual effort, but also the subjectivity and complexity of these analyses. Using additional re-identification (Re-ID) algorithms, different participants in the interaction can be distinguished. The aim of this study was to compare the results of manual annotation of mobile eye-tracking data with the results of a computer vision algorithm. We selected the first minute of seven randomly selected eye-tracking videos of consultations between physicians and patients in a Dutch Internal Medicine out-patient clinic. Three human annotators and a computer vision algorithm annotated mobile eye-tracking data, after which interrater reliability was assessed between the areas-of-interest annotated by the annotators and the computer vision algorithm. Additionally, we explored interrater reliability when using lengthy videos and different area-of-interest shapes. In total, we analysed more than 65 min of eye-tracking videos manually and with the algorithm. Overall, the absolute normalized difference between the manual and the algorithm annotations of face-gaze was less than 2%. Our results show high interrater agreements between human annotators and the algorithm with Cohen’s kappa ranging from 0.85 to 0.98. We conclude that computer vision algorithms produce comparable results to those of human annotators. Analyses by the algorithm are not subject to annotator fatigue or subjectivity and can therefore advance eye-tracking analyses.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 180502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy S. Hessels ◽  
Diederick C. Niehorster ◽  
Marcus Nyström ◽  
Richard Andersson ◽  
Ignace T. C. Hooge

Eye movements have been extensively studied in a wide range of research fields. While new methods such as mobile eye tracking and eye tracking in virtual/augmented realities are emerging quickly, the eye-movement terminology has scarcely been revised. We assert that this may cause confusion about two of the main concepts: fixations and saccades. In this study, we assessed the definitions of fixations and saccades held in the eye-movement field, by surveying 124 eye-movement researchers. These eye-movement researchers held a variety of definitions of fixations and saccades, of which the breadth seems even wider than what is reported in the literature. Moreover, these definitions did not seem to be related to researcher background or experience. We urge researchers to make their definitions more explicit by specifying all the relevant components of the eye movement under investigation: (i) the oculomotor component: e.g. whether the eye moves slow or fast; (ii) the functional component: what purposes does the eye movement (or lack thereof) serve; (iii) the coordinate system used: relative to what does the eye move; (iv) the computational definition: how is the event represented in the eye-tracker signal. This should enable eye-movement researchers from different fields to have a discussion without misunderstandings.


2020 ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Yu. Olefir ◽  
E. Sakanyan ◽  
I. Osipova ◽  
V. Dobrynin ◽  
M. Smirnova ◽  
...  

The entry of a wide range of biotechnological products into the pharmaceutical market calls for rein-forcement of the quality, efficacy and safety standards at the state level. The following general monographs have been elaborated for the first time to be included into the State Pharmacopoeia of the Russian Federation, XIV edition: "Viral safety" and "Reduction of the risk of transmitting animal spongiform encephalopathy via medicinal products". These general monographs were elaborated taking into account the requirements of foreign pharmacopoeias and the WHO recommendations. The present paper summarises the key aspects of the monographs.


Author(s):  
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos

Byzantine medicine is still a little-known and misrepresented field not only in the wider arena of debates on medieval medicine but also among Byzantinists. Byzantine medical literature is often viewed as ‘stagnant’ and mainly preserving ancient ideas; and our knowledge of it continues to be based to a great extent on the comments of earlier authorities, which are often repeated uncritically. This book presents the first comprehensive examination of the medical corpus of, arguably, the most important late Byzantine physician John Zacharias Aktouarios (c.1275–c.1330). The main thesis is that John’s medical works show an astonishing degree of openness to knowledge from outside Byzantium combined with a significant degree of originality, in particular, in the fields of uroscopy, pharmacology, and human physiology. The analysis of John’s edited (On Urines and On Psychic Pneuma) and unedited (Medical Epitome) works is supported for the first time by the consultation of a large number of manuscripts. The study is also informed by evidence from a wide range of medical sources, including previously unpublished ones, and texts from other genres, such as epistolography and merchants’ accounts. The contextualization of John’s works sheds new light on the development of Byzantine medical thought and practice, and enhances our understanding of the late Byzantine social and intellectual landscape. Finally, John’s medical observations are also examined in the light of examples from the medieval Latin and Islamic worlds, placing his medical theories in the wider Mediterranean milieu and highlighting the cultural exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours.


Author(s):  
Noel Malcolm

This book of essays covers a wide range of topics in the history of Albania and Kosovo. Many of the essays illuminate connections between the Albanian lands and external powers and interests, whether political, military, diplomatic or religious. Such topics include the Habsburg invasion of Kosovo in 1689, the manoeuvrings of Britain and France towards the Albanian lands during the Napoleonic Wars, the British interest in those lands in the late nineteenth century, and the Balkan War of 1912. On the religious side, essays examine ‘crypto-Christianity’ in Kosovo during the Ottoman period, the stories of conversion to Islam revealed by Inquisition records, the first theological treatise written in Albanian (1685), and the work of the ‘Apostolic Delegate’ who reformed the Catholic Church in early twentieth-century Albania. Some essays bring to life ordinary individuals hitherto unknown to history: women hauled before the Inquisition, for example, or the author of the first Albanian autobiography. The longest essay, on Ali Pasha, tells for the first time the full story of the role he played in the international politics of the Napoleonic Wars. Some of these studies have been printed before (several in hard-to-find publications, and one only in Albanian), but the greater part of this book appears here for the first time. This is not only a contribution to Albanian and Balkan history it also engages with many broader issues, including religious conversion, methods of enslavement within the Ottoman Empire, and the nature of modern myth-making about national identity.


The recycling and reuse of materials and objects were extensive in the past, but have rarely been embedded into models of the economy; even more rarely has any attempt been made to assess the scale of these practices. Recent developments, including the use of large datasets, computational modelling, and high-resolution analytical chemistry, are increasingly offering the means to reconstruct recycling and reuse, and even to approach the thorny matter of quantification. Growing scholarly interest in the topic has also led to an increasing recognition of these practices from those employing more traditional methodological approaches, which are sometimes coupled with innovative archaeological theory. Thanks to these efforts, it has been possible for the first time in this volume to draw together archaeological case studies on the recycling and reuse of a wide range of materials, from papyri and textiles, to amphorae, metals and glass, building materials and statuary. Recycling and reuse occur at a range of site types, and often in contexts which cross-cut material categories, or move from one object category to another. The volume focuses principally on the Roman Imperial and late antique world, over a broad geographical span ranging from Britain to North Africa and the East Mediterranean. Last, but not least, the volume is unique in focusing upon these activities as a part of the status quo, and not just as a response to crisis.


1998 ◽  
Vol 162 ◽  
pp. 100-105
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Norton ◽  
Mark H. Jones

The Open University is the UK's foremost distance teaching university. For over twenty five years we have been presenting courses to students spanning a wide range of degree level and vocational subjects. Since we have no pre-requisites for entry, a major component of our course profile is a selection of foundation courses comprising one each in the Arts, Social Science, Mathematics, Technology and Science faculties. The Science Faculty's foundation course is currently undergoing a substantial revision. The new course, entitled “S103: Discovering Science”, will be presented to students for the first time in 1998.


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