xBlog: The visual thinking weblog » Eye tracking

Reading Process Is Surprisingly Different That Previously Thought, Technology Shows

Bill — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:17:40 +0000

“Scientists have been interested in the movements of our eyes while reading for forty years. However, until now most assumed that when we read both eyes look at the same letter of a word concurrently.

Now ground-breaking research by cognitive psychologist Professor Simon Liversedge and his team at the University of Southampton has shown that this is not actually the case. They found that our eyes are actually up to something much more exciting when we read — our eyes look at different letters in the same word and then combine the different images through a process known as fusion.”

Artists look different

Bill — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:19:02 +0000

“So why do artists look at pictures — especially non-abstract pictures — differently from non-artists? Vogt and Magnussen argue that it comes down to training: artists have learned to identify the real details of a picture, not just the ones that are immediately most salient to the perceptual system, which is naturally disposed to focusing on objects and faces.” (Thanks kottke.org!)

Poynter’s Complete Waste of Time

Bill — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:53:19 +0000

“The Poynter Institute is about to launch the research phase of its run-up to launching version 4.0 of its perennially popular game, The Poynter Institute’s Complete Waste of Time. Many of you may know it by its more common name, the EyeTrack study. It’s a game where knowledge is fun! — knowledge of utterly useless, anecdotal and irresponsibly non-applicable trivia about the viewing habits of website visitors. Let’s play along.”

E-Commerce Showdown

Bill — Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:00:00 +0000

“This year, the Ziff Davis Smart Business Labs teamed up with eyeTracking.com to find out which sites make it easiest and fastest to find what you’re looking for, get questions answered, and complete and track your order. We chose two leading companies in the hottest e-commerce categories and pitted them against one another in our exhaustive tests.”

Reading your mouse movements

Bill — Fri, 28 Sep 2001 08:00:00 +0000

“A website that can read your body language and know what you want before you have even clicked on anything may sound like science fiction… A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, US, say they have developed a way to record mouse movements on a page and learn how people behave when they are on the internet.”

Eye Tracking in Advanced Interface Design