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A study of eye tracking technology and its applications

Conference Paper · October 2017
DOI: 10.1109/ICISIM.2017.8122153

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A study of Eye Tracking Technology and its

applications
Pramodini A. Punde Dr. Mukti E. Jadhav Dr. Ramesh R.
Manza
MGMs Dr.G.Y.P.College of C.S.&I.T., G.S.Mandal’s M.I.T.College Dr.B.A.M. University,
Aurangabad, India Aurangabad, India Aurangabad, India
Researchers Ware and Mikaelian demonstrated an
experiment for HCI, wherein simple operations like
Abstract— cursor positioning and target selection were performed.
We can measure the eye movement activity using eye Recently, the Eye Tracking technology has flourished
tracking technology. Eye tracking gives us information for more research in various fields.
about where do we look? What is ignored and how the
pupil reacts to different stimuli. The eye tracking concept
Eye Tracking Method:
is basic but its process and interpretation can be very
diverse and complex. ET measures the gaze points There are many techniques to track and record
generated by our eye relative to the head. Eye trackers are the eye movements. The most common technique used
availbble in either remote or mobile forms. It tracks and by modern eye trackers is Pupil Center Corneal
records where do we look and how we move the gaze. One Reflection (PCCR). It uses near-infrared camera or
can analyze, visualize and interpret this information with other optical sensor for tracking the direction of gaze. In
the help of software. We have gone through the common this method a near infrared light is directed towards the
use of fingerprint analysis and applications, eye tracking
also would be a great biometric tool for analysis in various pupil i.e. the center of the eyes that causes visible
applications. In this paper we discuss eye tracking reflections in the cornea which are tracked by a camera.
technology and its various applications. Now days, ET is PCCR is most commonly used in remote nonintrusive
being employed in almost all field including psychology, eye trackers [3].
human computer interaction, marketers, designers, Eye tracker basically captures eye movement
academics, medical, research and many more. by using a light source that illuminates eye that causes
Keywords—eye tracking; gaze; fixations; scanpaths visible reflections. It uses a high resolution camera to
capture eye image to show these reflections. Then this
eye image is used to identify the reflections of the light
I. INTRODUCTION source on cornea and pupil. Then vector formed by
Eye Tracking Technology: angle between the cornea and pupil reflections is
Most of the knowledge about our external calculated and based on this information the gaze
world is gathered by using our eyes. So vision is the direction is calculated. The vector calculation methods
most important of our senses. Where we fix our eyes include:
(gaze), and how we move eyes is associated with where :
we pay attention to. Eye tracking uses sensor technology • Velocity based
to follow an individual’s gaze and eye movement. This • Dispersion Based
enables the ET device to identify where our eyes are
• Area of Interest
focused at exactly. It also determines our presence,
With the help of image processing, if the Line Of Gaze
attention, focus [1].
(LoG) or Line Of Sight can be estimated and the Point
Of Regard (PoR) can be computed as the intersection of
Literature Review:
the LoG with the LoS with the object of space or scene.
In 1999, Kyualg Nam Kim and
S.R.Ramakrishnan proposed a vision based eye gaze
tracking method used for HCI. They proposed eye gaze
as input mode for efficient computer interface. Eye
movements were the focus of research in this area[2].
The general use of real time eye movement
data was relatively less focused in Human Computer
Interaction.Some work was done by Richard Bolt and
presented many innovative uses of eye movement data.

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 • Remote Eye Trackers/ Screen Based
• Head Mounted Eye Trackers/ Mobile
A. Remote or Screen Based Eye Trackers:
These types of Eye Trackers require the
respondents/ participant to sit in front of a screen to
interact with the stimuli or screen based content. Remote
ET systems track the eyes within certain limits called
headbox, but the eye movement freedom is sufficiently
large and the respondents feel unrestricted. Following are
the characteristics of remote Eye Tracker:
• Records eye movement at a distance
Fig. 1 Eye tracker types [7] • There are no attachments to respondent
• Computer or screen mounted
The modern eye trackers can be available as • Respondent sits in front of ET
small and tiny as a pencil case and are getting more
• Observations of any screen-based
flexible and compact than the earlier eye trackers those
stimulus material, offline stimuli can be
were very large and cumbersome. Because of its
recorded
flexibility, eye trackers are gaining popularity in almost
all fields. Any research domain can get benefits from the B. Head-mounted or mobile Eye Tracker:
collective quantitative evidences captured with method These are fitted near the eyes and allow
without making the participants uncomfortable. We can respondent/ participant to move freely. These are used if
get quick results with meaningful visualizations and your study needs to perform tasks in a natural
statistical data from an eye tracker. Eye trackers environment. On the other hand, glasses might shift during
measure visual attention, interest and has become a the recording [4] Following are the characteristics of
popular tool for research in almost all fields for example mobile Eye Tracker:
cognitive linguistics, Psychology, Medicine, Marketing, .
Engineering, education, gaming and also in enhancing
• Records eye movement from a close
HCI by using eye movements for navigation and
range
control.
Eye tracking is used as a powerful research tool, • Mounted on a lightweight eyeglasses
now is more accessible and is growing in popularity. • Respondent can walk around freely
Researchers from varied fields and disciplines such as The eye trackers are available in the market from
Sports Scientists, Cognitive Psychologists, reading following organizations:
researchers, usability analysts, psycholinguists, electrical • Tobii
engineers, neurophysiologists and many more have a • SMIVision
vested interest in eye tracking for a variety of reasons. The • EyeLink
growth of eye tracking in recent years has gone through
many challenges in designing an eye tracking experiment • Interactive Minds
and analyzing the data. • Imotions
Now days the laptops, tablets, smart phones with • Mirametrics
3G, 4G technology are very commonly used. We have • EyeTech
gone through the popularity and use of touch control in
various devices. Similarly, eye tracking technology is also II. EYE TRACKER METRICS
going to take off a big way. We can get following metrics from an eye
The reason behind this is all smart phones have tracker and the information that we get from an eye
high resolution cameras. This can be combined with eye tracker can be analyzed for various applications [4].
tracking technology to get data about the user’s vision
when the user is performing his routine task. As eye Fixations and Gaze Points:
tracking is growing quickly in popularity knowledge about The main metrics used in eye tracking are
it has become more accessible than ever, creating a vast fixations and gaze points.
ocean of information. Gaze Point:
The basic units of measuring the eye
Eye Tracker Types: movements are gaze points, one gaze point is one row
The following two types of eye trackers are captured by the ET device. Fixation:
available in the market:

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 A fixation is a cluster denoted by a series of Fixation sequence can be generated based on
gaze points which are to be close in time and range. fixation position and time information. It depends on
Fixation is a period in which our eyes are fixed at a where a respondent looks and for how long. We can build
particular object in a an order of attention where the respondent looked first,
stimulus. Typically fixation duration is 100 to second and so on. This parameter is used in research as it
300 milliseconds. reflects salient elements in the display or in an
Smooth pursuit: environment that catch much attention. AOIs that
It is an eye movement that allows eyes to closely follow respondents look at first are visually more salient and
a moving object i.e. voluntarily shift gaze. For example, hence are of more interest.
imagine watching clouds in the sky. Here, our eye Respondent count:
movements are quite opposite as our eyes follow This metric allows to extract more information
moving objects steadily t i.e. clouds. about the number of respondents had gaze direction
Saccades: towards a
Saccade refers to a rapid eye movement which specific AOI. Higher respondent count indicate
redirects the visual axis to a new location. The rapid eye that fixations and gaze points are driven by some external
movements between fixations are referred to as aspects in the
saccades. For example while reading a book our eye stimulus
movements are not smooth across the line but instead Time
our eyes jump and pause generating a number of Spent:
saccades. Typically saccades are measured in angle Time spent specifies the amount of time that
velocity. On an average, saccades span 7 to 9 characters respondents have spent on a specific AOI. It often
along a line that contains text. This can be used to study indicates motivation and conscious attention because long
reading behavior as early or expert readers. prevalence at a region points to a high level interest.
Scan paths:
The scanpath was first defined by David Noton and III. APPLICATIONS OF EYE TRACKING
Lawrence Stark in 1971. The sequence of fixation- Eye tracking technology is going to take off a big
saccadefixation is referred to as scanpath.. way as we have gone through the touch control/ sensor
Heat maps: technology. The ET technology can be used in almost all
The static or dynamic or static aggregations of fields. Eye tracker device gathers various metrics
gaze points and fixations generate the distribution of discussed above. This data can be analyzed and used for
visual attention are represented through a heat map. many applications. The most commonly used eye tracking
Heat maps serve as an excellent method for applications are discussed below:
visualization; it shows maximum attention area of the
stimulus. Scientific and Academic Research:
The ET is widely used in academic and scientific
research fields. It is applying the most of eye tracking
technology for cognitive, developmental, experimental and
media applications almost in medical, neuroscience, and
psychology [5] [6].

Market Research:
With the innovations in ET technology, it is possible to
measure attention to specific brands, products or theit
Fig. 2 Heat Maps key messages. It is also used to understand the ease or
difficulty in store navigation.
Heat maps use easy to read color coded scheme. In past few years, use of ET technology for
A high number of gaze points are indicated by Red area market research has become important. Many of leading
and shows an increased level of interest, yellow and green brands use ET tools to evaluate their products, designs,
area point toward less visual attention. shopping behavior of their customers, advertising the
Area of Interest: products to optimize the overall customer experience.
Area of interest (AOI), are subregions of a The wearable eye trackers enable the researchers to
stimulus object displayed on screen defined by user. understand the entire shopper’s experience in a real or
Metrics to separate AOIs are evaluated with the simulated store [7].
performance of two or more specific areas in the same Neuroscience and Psychology:
picture, website or any program interface. Human beings visualize in their minds first and
Fixation Sequence: then expectations get shape the way we see the world. If

978-1-5090-4264-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

we see a picture of a living room, we most likely increase realistic approach. In the coming time it is even
assume or know where we expect the television set. If it possible to personalize the games development by using
is at another location, we might be baffled and gaze player’s eye movements.
around the “scene semantics and our ‘rules’ how we [11].
imagined living room should look are violated. Human Factors and Simulation:
To get deeper insights and information into Use of ET in automotive research has used ET
cognitive processes, attention, learning and memory eye for a long time to capture driver’s visual attention or
tracking is useful to analyze the sequence of gaze drowsiness both with respect to navigation and dashboard
patterns in the field of Neuroscience and psychology. layout [12].
Another aspect of research is done as to how we encode
and recall faces how we encode and recall faces and Ophthalmology:
where do we look to extract the emotional state of
others. Eye tracking provides insights into reading In this field, on-screen vision studies are
performaces, word processing, particularly how eye conducted for medical researches and also for
movements are affected during reading by the emotional investigating eye diseases. The result of this study assist
contents of text [8]. in understanding the human eye and vision and also
Psychology Research: developing innovative approaches to diagnosing disease
In the field of psychology, researchers can [13]. The ET solutions in ophthalmology are:
measure and correlate visual attention with other
measures to study how brain works. The research in
• Perimetry
visual attention can be applied to normal populations
and for specific subjects that have different behavioral • Vision testing and Screening
patterns or different kind of mental disorders • Direction of the eye misalignment (Strabismas)
Medical Research: • Oculomotor Functions
ET technology in combination with other • Refractive Surgery
conventional research methods or biometric sensors can • AMD (Age related macular degeneration)
be helpful in diagnosis of diseases such as Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s,
Result Analysis:
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Attention
The above discussed applications are the most
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and
commonly used within ET research. However, ET is not
Parkinson’s disease. For an instance it can be used to
limited to these and can be even more powerful when used
detect drowsiness or support many other fields for
in combination with further biometric sensors. In our
medical and monitoring purpose.
further research, we will be using ET technology and
Usability Research:
methods to classify early glaucomatous changes from the
The emerging field that us ET technology is
eye tracker data. For example, we used DOVES database
usability and user experience. One most suitable
that provides us with more than 30,000 fixations. The
example is Website testing. Here attention to main
database contains eye data, fixation data for 29 subjects.
points/contents of the website, communication and Call
The fixation data for a subject is shown below [14]:
to Attention (CTA) can be measured. The website
owner may lose revenue if it is difficult to find a certain X-
481.35 274.6 316.3 296 783 673
609.2
542.79
Position 9
product on a website. Therefore if that website could be
improved to easily find a product, the revenue would be Y- 507 333.5
373.76 377.1 243.6 441.1 257 362.05
increased. Same applications can be used in mobile Position .9 3
Apps on Tablets and smart phones [9].
Duration 187 52 65 38 203 208 103 121

Packaging Research:
There is huge investment in designing packages
Table 1: Fixation data for a subject
of products. This is enhanced with ET technology
especially for fast moving consumer goods. This makes This fixation data when accessed through
sure that the package of a product has catchy messages and MATLAB produces following output:
gets visual attention on the shelves as compared to other
products. Eye tracking is used here for understanding the
customers’ preferences and designing the packages [10].
PC and Gaming Research:
ET technology is introduced to HCI and gaming
to enable game designers to better understand gaming
experience and accordingly control the experience and
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 to study early glaucomatous changes in high risk groups
with the help of eye tracker data.

REFERENCES
[1] http://www.eyetracking.com/
[2] Vision based eye gaze tracking for HCI, R.S. Ramakrishna, IEEE
SMC
99 Conference proceedings
[3] https://imotions.com/blog/eye-tracking-work/
[4] Eye Tracking Pocket Guide copyright 2016
[5] Low cost eye tracking technique for visual scan path detection in
the diagnosis of special learning disorders in children, Sumathi V,
M. Monicasubhashini, Himabindu. J, IJCSET, August 2011, Vol.1
Issue 7, 424-428
[6] A case study of using eye tracking techniques to evaluate the
usability of e–learning courses, Liu, Mingzhuo, Zhu, Zhiting
[7] www.tobiipro.com
Fig. 2: Computed Fixations for a subject [8] Reading performance Using Eye Tracking to Assess Reading
performance in Patients with Glaucoma: A Within-Person Study,
Nicholas D. Smith, Fiona C. Glen, Vera M. Mönter, and David P.
In above figure, the red square shows the first Crabb, Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Ophthalmology
fixation and green dots show the computed fixations. Volume 2014, Article ID 120528, 10 pages
With the study of above mentioned applications, we http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/120528
propose that the eye tracking data can be analyzed for [9] Identifying Web Usability Problems from Eye-Tracking Data,
various problems. We will be using eye tracking Claudia Ehmke, Stephanie Wilson British Computer
Society,People and Computers XXI – HCI Proceedings,2007.
metrics, scanpaths and fixations to identify
[10] Consumer Purchasing Based on Packaging Structural
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leading cause for irreversible blindness in developing Thackston, Katie, Pham, Andy, Galvarino, Josh]
countries such as India. Early detection of Glaucoma is [11] Eye Tracking in Human-Computer Interaction and Usability
important to save the vision loss due to Glaucoma. Here, Research: Current Status and Future Prospects Alex Poole and
Linden J. Ball, Psychology Department, Lancaster University, UK
we propose that eye tracker metrics analysis may help [12] OculomotorET Biometric Authentication via Oculomotor Plant
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movement metrics are captured, saccadic eye
[13] www.smivision.com
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[14] DOVES: Adatabase of visual eye movements, Van de Linde,
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fixationssaccade. We can collect this eye movement .
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analyze this data for early detection of Glaucoma.

IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper we studied eye tracking
technology, its method and applications in various
fields. A single technology can have a wide scope of
applications. Now days the laptops, tablets, smart
phones with 3G, 4G technology are very commonly
used. We have gone through the popularity and use of
touch control in various devices. Similarly, eye tracking
technology is also going to take off a big way. The
reason behind this is all smart phones have high
resolution cameras. This can be combined with eye
tracking technology to get data about the user’s vision
when the user is performing his routine task. As eye
tracking is growing quickly in popularity knowledge
about it has become more accessible than ever, creating
a vast ocean of information. Here is a wide scope for
analyzing huge data generated from an eye tracker and
applied for solving a specific problem. Here, we propose

978-1-5090-4264-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

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