What Is Eye Tracking?

Eye tracking is a type of methodology useful in psychology and behavioral sciences for quantifying attentional processes. Many different technologies have arisen in the last few years for this purpose. With eye tracking, the position of the eye is measured, along with the point of gaze, then the changing movements and positions are measured in parallel with the stimuli or objects being presented during the experiment. Classic experiments have used hardware-based eye tracking, but in recent years a shift has occurred where remote, webcam options are also becoming popular.

Online Eye Tracking with a Webcam

Labvanced’s webcam eye tracking is one of the leading solutions for remote, web-based eye tracking.

Read this peer-reviewed paper in the journal of Behavior Research Methods comparing the accuracy of Labvanced's webcam-based eye tracking solution to EyeLink.

By utilizing the built-in webcam during the experiment, the participant can essentially participate in any eye tracking study created in Labvanced. This happens with utmost privacy because the process occurs locally and is not being sent to remote servers, ie. no face data is ever recorded, only general gaze data, such as the (X,Y) coordinates of the gaze. Read more about Data Privacy and Security in Labvanced.

Eye Tracking Methodology

For psychology research experiments, there are a few common approaches and methods that can be used for implementing eye tracking technology.

The major division is whether to use:

• In-lab technology: Usually really expensive equipment that is already a part of the lab. For example, EyeLink is a piece of eye tracking equipment that can be had in the lab. While it is pricey, it is considered as the gold standard of eye tracking technology.
• Remote technology: Solutions that take the eye measurements outside of the lab are also popular, like online apps or software that makes use of webcams, because they allow participants to partake in experiments remotely, ultimately reaching a wider audience. Labvanced’s eye tracking falls in this category.

Both in-lab and remote technology have their pros and cons.

Eye Tracking Metrics

Eye tracking produces many different metrics which are then used for data analysis and drawing conclusions about your experimental question, such as:

1. Gaze location / coordinates
2. Areas of Interest (AOI)
3. Revists
4. Dwell time / time spent
5. Time to first fixation
6. First fixation duration
7. Average fixation duration
8. Fixation sequences
9. Heatmaps

Popular Metrics Collected with Webcam Online Eye Tracking

The majority of the eye tracking-related metrics are generated during the data analysis stage, after data collection. The basis of these metrics is gaze measurements. Thus, if you know the gaze position point at any given time, you can calculate the remaining metrics.

1. Gaze coordinates
2. Number of fixations
3. Time to first fixation
4. Average fixation duration
5. Dwell time
6. First fixation duration
7. Area of Interest (AOI)-specific gaze values

The video below is an example of some of these metrics in action using webcam eye tracking in Labvanced. A red circle appears which takes on the x-, y- coordinates of your gaze, so it's nice to experience that 'feedback loop' in real-time. To try it out simply click the Participate button under the description of the live metrics demo study here or the Import button if you wish to have a copy of this in your account. Note: this version below requires a 5-minute calibration process. If you want to change the calibration for quick testing purposes, you can do so under the Study Settings.

Below, we imported this demo and changed the calibration to a 40-second calibration for demonstration purposes. For more accuracy, a longer calirbation period is recommended:

If you have any questions, please contact us via email or chat!

Example of AOI Data in Labvanced using Webcam Eyetracking

The image below shows an example for gaze coordinates (X,Y) as well as adjusted time stamps (T) and confidence intervals (C) for AOI-specific regions in a webcam eye tracking experiment.

The confidence level (column C) has to do with how confident we are of the measurement and is impacted by when blinking occurs. Measurements from wide-open eyes receive more confidence than measurements from an eye that is half-open or in the process of blinking.

Collecting Eye Tracking Data from Labvanced

With a few clicks, you can set up your experiment to record the data you desire by selecting one of the many options and creating variables to record them.

Setting variables to record experimental data about gaze using Labvanced's webcam eye tracking.

In the image above, a variable is created to record the eye gazing X- and Y-coordinates, time stamps (T), and confidence levels (C).

Practice setting up your own eye tracking study in Labvanced by following our step-by-step walkthrough.

Eye Tracking Research

Theoretically, any area of psychology can use eye tracking software and technology as a part of its research methodology, depending on the research question. Here are a few examples of how the major areas of psychology can employ eye tracking:

• Cognitive & Neuro Psychology: For attentional change blindness, to measure at what point a participant shifts attention to a particular stimuli.
• Personality & Social Psychology: For social cues, can implement videos and watch where the participant allots their attention in social scenes.
• Behavioral Psychology: For reinforcement, can measure how positive or negative reinforcement subsequently affects eye movements and attentional processes.
• Developmental & Educational Psychology: Can quantify preferential looking in toddlers by measuring which stimuli they find more interesting and spend more time attending to.
• Clinical & Health Psychology: Studies across various populations assess how their visual system and attentional processes function under certain conditions. For example, studies interested in autism may gather eye movement data and compare differences across various stimuli.
• Marketing & Consumer Psychology: In marketing and consumer psychology, researchers may want to quantify which products participants spend more time attending to.
• Sports & Movement Psychology: For determining what areas of the playing field or what situations are given more attention to or priority by athletes.

Depending on the research question, eye tracking can be incorporated in virtually any field of psychology.

Publication Highlights: Labvanced Webcam Eye Tracking

This study examined how pharmacists use an AI prototype during medication product verification by tracking their eye movements using Labvanced’s webcam eye tracking. Participants were asked to determine if medication fill images matched reference images, both with and without AI assistance. The AI provided either "black box" help (match status indicators) or "uncertainty-aware" help (match status indicators plus a confidence histogram). Eye-tracking data via Labvanced’s online eye tracking was collected to assess how pharmacists visually processed the information and interacted with the AI's output. The study aimed to understand how AI influences cognitive load and decision-making in a time-sensitive medication verification task.

This study investigated how semantic information, conveyed through words or pictures, influences visual attention in a spatial cueing task. Participants were tasked with identifying the location of a target object (left or right) after being presented with a prime (word or picture) and a spatial cue. Experiment 1 examined the impact of words versus pseudo-words, while Experiment 2 explored object primes, focusing on matching versus mismatching exemplars. Labvanced’s webcam eye-tracking was used as a validity check to ensure participants maintained central fixation.

This study compared two girls with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) who had identical genetic mutations but different X-chromosome Activation Ratios (ARs). The researchers used eye-tracking, among other methods, to assess their Responding Joint Attention (RJA). The Labvanced webcam eye-tracking task involved showing the girls videos of faces looking at objects and measuring how long they looked at the face, the cued object, and an uncued object. The aim was to observe how different AR levels might affect their ability to follow another person's gaze and share focus, a skill often impaired in neurodevelopmental disorders like FXS.

Additional Physiological Measurements

Head and Mouse Tracking

Related to eye tracking are head and mouse tracking which researchers are interested in quantifying since both have been associated with attention.

For example, head movement is very popular in developmental psychology as toddlers and infants show exaggerated movement with their bodies when paying attention to a stimulus or object. Thus, instead of simply moving their eyes, they are likely to orient their entire body and head towards the object they are attending to.

Head tracking is useful as it foregoes the calibration process and uses head position as a means of quantifying attention. The demo below gives a preview of how head position can be quantified using data-drive range elements that move based on the head coordinates in space. Try it out here.

For mouse tracking in psychological research, it is useful for quantifying behavior. Also, some software use mouse tracking as a proxy or correlation for attention. However, this has had some criticisms.

Head and mouse tracking undoubtedly provide useful insights and information to participant’s behavior and attention, especially if the experimental question and methodology align with these two techniques. However, acquiring eye tracking data is generally considered as the best approach for cognitive research as eye movements are directly related to the visual field and which stimuli are being attended to.

Conclusion

With eye tracking technology, whether it is expensive equipment or online-based tracking, researchers collect data about the participants’ visual field and the stimuli being attended to. By measuring eye movements (sometimes with head and mouse tracking involved), an experiment gains an extra layer of information as researchers can study attentional processes across multiple domains.

More information about how to run eye tracking research, including how to set up such an experiment in Labvanced is covered in our YouTube playlist, but also reach out if you have any questions: