Let’s Focus In: A Guide to Eye Tracking Technology in Agricultural Communications Research

Communicating with the public about the agricultural industry often presents challenges in learning how to convey messages that are deemed as salient to various types of people. Media is understood through complex cognitive processes that result in varying attitudes throughout interaction with a stimulus, thus requiring methods that go beyond traditional self-report measures. The majority of agricultural communication research has encompassed quantitative and qualitative research, which often does not account for changes throughout media consumption. Eye tracking is an underutilized resource in agricultural communication that can be used to yield further insight into areas of interest that elicit visual attention and can signal further processing of information. This professional development paper examines the contributions of eye tracking research in agricultural communication and provides an overview of strategies for implementation in both research and practice

Trends and Techniques in Visual Gaze Analysis

Visualizing gaze data is an effective way for the quick interpretation of eye tracking results. This paper presents a study investigation benefits and limitations of visual gaze analysis among eye tracking professionals and researchers. The results were used to create a tool for visual gaze analysis within a Master's project.Comment: pages 89-93, The 5th Conference on Communication by Gaze Interaction - COGAIN 2009: Gaze Interaction For Those Who Want It Most, ISBN: 978-87-643-0475-

Investigating the effectiveness of an efficient label placement method using eye movement data

This paper focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of dynamic and interactive maps in relation to the user. A label placement method with an improved algorithmic efficiency is presented. Since this algorithm has an influence on the actual placement of the name labels on the map, it is tested if this efficient algorithms also creates more effective maps: how well is the information processed by the user. We tested 30 participants while they were working on a dynamic and interactive map display. Their task was to locate geographical names on each of the presented maps. Their eye movements were registered together with the time at which a given label was found. The gathered data reveal no difference in the user's response times, neither in the number and the duration of the fixations between both map designs. The results of this study show that the efficiency of label placement algorithms can be improved without disturbing the user's cognitive map. Consequently, we created a more efficient map without affecting its effectiveness towards the user