Animated virtual agents to cue user attention: comparison of static and dynamic deictic cues on gaze and touch responses

This paper describes an experiment developed to study the performance of virtual agent animated cues within digital interfaces. Increasingly, agents are used in virtual environments as part of the branding process and to guide user interaction. However, the level of agent detail required to establish and enhance efficient allocation of attention remains unclear. Although complex agent motion is now possible, it is costly to implement and so should only be routinely implemented if a clear benefit can be shown. Pevious methods of assessing the effect of gaze-cueing as a solution to scene complexity have relied principally on two-dimensional static scenes and manual peripheral inputs. Two experiments were run to address the question of agent cues on human-computer interfaces. Both experiments measured the efficiency of agent cues analyzing participant responses either by gaze or by touch respectively. In the first experiment, an eye-movement recorder was used to directly assess the immediate overt allocation of attention by capturing the participant’s eyefixations following presentation of a cueing stimulus. We found that a fully animated agent could speed up user interaction with the interface. When user attention was directed using a fully animated agent cue, users responded 35% faster when compared with stepped 2-image agent cues, and 42% faster when compared with a static 1-image cue. The second experiment recorded participant responses on a touch screen using same agent cues. Analysis of touch inputs confirmed the results of gaze-experiment, where fully animated agent made shortest time response with a slight decrease on the time difference comparisons. Responses to fully animated agent were 17% and 20% faster when compared with 2-image and 1-image cue severally. These results inform techniques aimed at engaging users’ attention in complex scenes such as computer games and digital transactions within public or social interaction contexts by demonstrating the benefits of dynamic gaze and head cueing directly on the users’ eye movements and touch responses

Pervasive and standalone computing: The perceptual effects of variable multimedia quality.

The introduction of multimedia on pervasive and mobile communication devices raises a number of perceptual quality issues, however, limited work has been done examining the 3-way interaction between use of equipment, quality of perception and quality of service. Our work measures levels of informational transfer (objective) and user satisfaction (subjective)when users are presented with multimedia video clips at three different frame rates, using four different display devices, simulating variation in participant mobility. Our results will show that variation in frame-rate does not impact a user’s level of information assimilation, however, does impact a users’ perception of multimedia video ‘quality’. Additionally, increased visual immersion can be used to increase transfer of video information, but can negatively affect the users’ perception of ‘quality’. Finally, we illustrate the significant affect of clip-content on the transfer of video, audio and textual information, placing into doubt the use of purely objective quality definitions when considering multimedia presentations

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 217, March 1981

Approximately 130 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in February 1981 are included in this bibliography. Topics include aerospace medicine and biology

An informatics system for exploring eye movements in reading

Eye tracking techniques have been widely used in many research areas including cognitive science, psychology, human-computer interaction, marketing research, medical research etc. Many computer programs have emerged to help these researchers to design experiments, present visual stimuli and process the large quantity of numerical data produced by the eye tracker. However, most applications, especially commercial products, are designed for a particular tracking device and tend to be general purpose. Few of them are designed specifically for reading research. This can be inconvenient when dealing with complex experimental design, multi-source data collection, and text based data analysis, including almost every aspect of a reading study lifecycle. A flexible and powerful system that manages the lifecycle of different reading studies is required to fulfill these demands. Therefore, we created an informatics system with two major software suites: Experiment Executor and EyeMap. It is a system designed specifically for reading research. Experiment Executor helps reading researchers build complex experimental environments, which can rapidly present display changes and support the co-registration of eye tracking information with other data collection devices such as EEG (electroencephalography) amplifiers. The EyeMap component helps researchers visualize and analysis a wide range of writing systems including spaced and unspaced scripts, which can be presented in proportional or non-proportional font types. The aim of the system is to accelerate the life cycle of a reading experiment from design through analysis. Several experiments were conducted on this system. These experiments confirmed the effectiveness and the capability of the system with several new reading research findings from the visual information processing stages of reading

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 359)

This bibliography lists 164 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during Jan. 1992. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and physiology, life support systems and man/system technology, protective clothing, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, planetary biology, and flight crew behavior and performance

Eye-tracking the emergence of attentional anchors in a mathematics learning tablet activity

Little is known about micro-processes by which sensorimotor interaction gives rise to conceptual development. Per embodiment theory, these micro-processes are mediated by dynamical attentional structures. Accordingly this study investigated eye-gaze behaviors during engagement in solving tablet-based bimanual manipulation tasks designed to foster proportional reasoning. Seventy-six elementary- and vocational-school students (9-15 yo) participated in individual task-based clinical interviews. Data gathered included action-logging, eye-tracking, and videography. Analyses revealed the emergence of stable eye-path gaze patterns contemporaneous with first enactments of effective manipulation and prior to verbal articulations of manipulation strategies. Characteristic gaze patterns included consistent or recurring attention to screen locations that bore non-salient stimuli or no stimuli at all yet bore invariant geometric relations to dynamical salient features. Arguably, this research validates empirically hypothetical constructs from constructivism, particularly reflective abstraction

Expectation incongruence in music and code reading: The eye-tracking approach

Humans create and use different kinds of languages in order to store, view, and convey various types of information. Natural languages, such as English, allow people to communicate with each other in everyday and professional contexts. In contrast, symbolic languages, such as Western music notation or programming languages, enable people to make use of technical devices like musical instruments or computers. Research on the eye movements of expert musicians and programmers has revealed certain similarities in how these symbolic languages are read: unlike text reading, experts read music and code with more regressive eye movements. The current dissertation is the first project that explores music and code reading together. It focuses on one of the aspects of music and code reading that is equally important for both symbolic languages—the skill of working with unexpected information from a notation. In music and programming, this skill is especially required in tasks such as handling surprising melodic patterns and debugging, respectively. This dissertation had three main aims: (1) theoretical exploration of similarities and differences in creating expectations that help with pattern recognition in music and programming; (2) development (in music reading) and creation (in code reading) of research methodologies that can be applied in research on incongruent patterns; and (3) exploration of the cognitive processing of incongruent notation in experienced music readers and one experienced code reader. Surprising elements in familiar patterns hamper their recognition. Article I presents a theoretical exploration of the similarities and differences in building expectations that allow pattern recognition in music and programming. The proposed prediction model, which serves as the solution to Aim 1, includes three components that are common for both music and programming: (1) knowledge of language systems, (2) knowledge of meaning, and (3) knowledge of context. In addition, it also contains two components that differ for music and programming: (4) translation of information and (5) temporal and motor requirements. Experiments presented in this dissertation can be considered to be the first steps toward looking at certain components of the proposed prediction model in detail when prediction works normally (congruent notation) and when prediction is violated (incongruent notation). In order to study the reading of surprising incongruent patterns in music and code, special experimental settings, which provide the solution to Aim 2, were developed for music reading and created for code reading. Hence, the selected setup for the music reading study was based on a prior study (Penttinen et al., 2015), where incongruences were introduced in the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” melody and all music performances were temporarily controlled using a metronome. Experiment 1 developed this set-up by inserting incongruent notes into two different tonalities and by asking participants to play on a piano or sing from the notation. Thus, the music reading experiment focused on the first, second, fourth, and fifth components of the proposed model in music reading. It explored how the meaning of congruent and incongruent musical symbols is processed by experienced music readers. In addition, it also explored the translation of music information into two different performance ways (singing and playing piano) that have different motor requirements. Combining three different eye movement parameters allowed the researcher to describe different aspects of the cognitive processing of incongruent music reading—the temporal aspect, with the help of the eye-time span parameter (ETS), the cognitive effort aspect with the help of the mean pupil size parameter measured only in first-pass fixations, and the attention aspect with the help of the first-pass fixation duration. Experiment 2 on code reading was carefully designed on the basis of the music reading study. Consequently, incongruences were introduced in different parts of the familiar notation. The Bubble sort algorithm—a well-known sorting algorithm—was chosen as an analogue of the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” melody in programming. As in the music reading study, all code reading performances were temporarily controlled. The case code study provided some insights into the first and second components of the proposed model in programming by investigating how an experienced programmer reads sorting algorithms with and without surprising patterns. It particularly focuses on the phenomenon of an experienced reader overlooking the surprising pattern, which is considered to be the original one instead so-called proof-readers’ error. In addition, this study explored the issue of the unit of code reading analysis by comparing two different options: lines and elements. The study introduced saccade velocity as a parameter of cognitive effort for the incongruent code reading analysis. Research findings from these experimental studies provided the solution to Aim 3 and revealed that—in both music and code reading—incongruent patterns in the notation led to changes in fixation and cognitive effort parameters (pupil size and saccadic velocity). In contrast to code reading, strict temporal requirements for the processing of incongruence exist in music reading. The application of the eye-time span (ETS) parameter that describes the distance between the performer’s gaze and musical time, allowed the researcher to investigate the temporal aspect of incongruence processing in the music reading experiment. Hence, experienced readers had longer ETS when they approached the incongruent part of the notation and shorter ETS when they were in the process of struggling with the incongruent part. In addition to incongruent reading, the difference in the performance mode of the same music task associated with the translation of information and motor requirements was studied in the music reading experiment by comparing singing and playing from music scores. Despite the fact that the participants played incongruent melodies better than they sang them, the analysis of eye movement parameters allowed the researcher to discover that singing might be less cognitively demanding than playing. These findings are discussed within the proposed theoretical model of prediction and associated expertise theories.Odotusten vastaisten symbolien lukeminen: katseenseurantatutkimus nuotin- ja koodinluvusta Ihmiset luovat ja käyttävät erilaisia kieliä tallentaakseen, tarkastellakseen ja välittääkseen informaatiota. Luonnolliset kielet, kuten englanti, mahdollistavat ihmisten välisen kommunikaation arkisissa ja ammatillisissa tilanteissa. Sen sijaan symboliset kielet, kuten länsimainen nuottikirjoitus tai ohjelmointikielet, mahdollistavat erilaisten laitteiden, kuten soittimien tai tietokoneiden, operoinnin. Taitavien muusikkojen ja koodinlukijoiden silmänliikkeiden tutkimus on paljastanut joitakin samankaltaisuuksia siitä, miten näitä kahta symbolikieltä luetaan: toisin kuin tekstin lukemisessa, taitavat nuotin- ja koodinlukijat tekevät enemmän regressiivisiä, eli taaksepäin suuntautuvia silmänliikkeitä. Tämä väitöstutkimus on ensimmäinen tutkimushanke, jossa tarkastellaan nuotin- ja koodinlukua rinnakkain. Tutkimus keskittyy tiettyyn, molemmissa symbolikielissä tärkeään piirteeseen, eli taitoon selvitä lukemisen aikana notaatiossa havaittuun yllättävään informaatioon. Sekä musiikin että ohjelmoinnin aloilla tätä taitoa tarvitaan silloin, kun lukijan täytyy käsitellä yllättäviä melodisia kuvioita musiikkikappaletta lukiessaan tai etsiä virheitä koodista. Tällä väitöstutkimuksella oli kolme päätavoitetta: (1) teoreettinen pohdinta nuotin- ja koodinluvun yhtäläisyyksistä ja eroavaisuuksista ja erityisesti siitä, miten taitavat lukijat muodostavat ennakko-oletuksia lukemastaan symbolien tunnistamisen helpottamiseksi; (2) menetelmien kehittäminen (nuotinluvussa) ja luominen (koodinluvussa) inkongruenttien, eli epäyhdenmukaisten, kuvioiden lukemisen tutkimukseen; ja (3) taitavien nuotinlukijoiden ja yhden taitavan koodinlukijan kognitiivisen prosessoinnin tutkiminen silloin, kun lukijat käsittelevät inkongruenttia informaatiota. Yllättävät elementit tutussa visuaalisessa materiaalissa vaikeuttavat kyseessä olevan materiaalin prosessointia. Artikkelissa I pohditaan nuotin- ja koodinluvun teoreettisia eroja ja eroavaisuuksista ja sitä, miten taitavat lukijat muodostavat ennakko-oletuksia lukiessaan. Ehdotettu ennustusmalli, jonka avulla vastataan päätavoitteeseen 1, sisältää kolme molemmille symbolikielille yhteistä komponenttia: (1) tiedon kielijärjestelmästä, (2) tiedon merkityksestä ja (3) tiedon kontekstista. Tämän lisäksi malli sisältää kaksi komponenttia, joissa nuotin- ja koodinluku eroavat toisistaan: (4) informaation kääntäminen laitteelle ja (5) temporaaliset ja motoriset vaatimukset. Tässä väitöstutkimuksessa esiteltävät empiiriset osahankkeet olivat ensiaskelia ennustusmallin komponenttien tutkimuksessa. Kahdessa osahankkeessa tarkasteltiin yksityiskohtaisesti tilanteita, joissa ennakko-oletuksia voi hyödyntää tavalliseen tapaan (kongruentti notaatio) ja kun odotukset eivät toteudu (inkongruentti notaatio). Tässä väitöstutkimuksessa kehitettiin koeasetelmia nuotin- ja koodinluvun aikaisten, yllättävien ja inkongruenttien kuvioiden lukemisen tutkimusta varten (päätavoite 2). Nuotinlukuaiheinen koeasetelma pohjautui aikaisempaan tutkimukseen (Penttinen et al., 2015), jossa epäyhdenmukaisuuksia sijoitettiin tuttuun ”Maijall’ oli karitsa” –melodiaan ja soittosuoritusten ajoitusta kontrolloitiin metronomin avulla. Osatutkimus 1 kehitti tätä asetelmaa edelleen esittämällä tutun kappaleen osallistujille kahdessa eri sävellajissa ja pyytämällä osallistujia toteuttamaan melodia kahdella eri tavalla, soittaen ja laulaen. Osatutkimus 1 keskittyi siis ennustusmallin ensimmäiseen, toiseen, neljänteen ja viidenteen komponenttiin nuotinlukemisen näkökulmasta. Osatutkimuksessa 1 tutkittiin kuinka taitavat nuotinlukijat prosessoivat kongruenttien ja inkongruenttien nuottisymbolien merkityksiä. Tämän lisäksi osahanke selvitti sitä, miten nuottiinformaatio käännettiin kahdelle motorisilta vaatimuksiltaan erilaiselle ”soittimelle” (pianonsoitto ja laulaminen). Kognitiivisia prosesseja inkongruentin materiaalin lukemisen aikana kuvailtiin kolmen eri silmänliikemuuttujan turvin: lukuprosessin ajallista etenemistä selvitettiin eye-time span –mittarin (ETS) avulla, kognitiivista työmäärää mittaamalla pupillin koon vaihtelua, ja fiksaatioiden kestot kertoivat huomion kohdistumisesta notaation eri osiin ensilukemisen aikana. Koodinlukuun keskittyvä osatutkimus 2 suunniteltiin osatutkimuksen 1 koeasetelman pohjalta ja epäyhdenmukaisuudet sijoitettiin jälleen tuttuun notaatioon. Koodinlukukokeessa nuotinlukukokeen ”Maijall’ oli karitsa” –melodian tilalle valittiin hyvin tunnettu kuplalajittelualgoritmi, ja myös koodinlukutehtävässä kontrolloitiin ajankäyttöä. Tapaustutkimuksessa selvitettiin, miten kokenut ohjelmoija luki lajittelualgoritmia silloin kun siinä joko oli tai ei ollut inkongruentteja kohtia. Näin voitiin tarkastella ennustusmallin ensimmäistä ja toista komponenttia koodinlukemisen näkökulmasta. Tapaustutkimus keskittyi erityisesti tilanteeseen, jossa kokenut lukija ohitti yllättävät elementit notaatiossa ja tulkitsi inkongruentin algoritmin oikeaksi ja alkuperäiseksi (ns. proof-readers’ error). Tämän lisäksi osatutkimuksessa 2 testattiin koodinlukututkimuksiin sopivia analyysiyksiköitä vertaamalla kahta vaihtoehtoa, rivejä ja elementtejä, ja esiteltiin sakkadien nopeus kognitiivisen työmäärän tarkasteluun sopivana, koodinlukututkimuksille uutena mittarina. Osatutkimusten 1 ja 2 perusteella vastattiin päätavoitteeseen 3. Osatutkimuksissa selvisi, että sekä nuotin- että koodinlukutilanteissa inkongruentit kohdat notaatiossa johtivat muutoksiin fiksaatio- ja kognitiivisen työmäärän mittareissa (pupillin koko ja sakkadin nopeus). Toisin kuin koodinluvussa, tiukat temporaaliset rajoitteet säätelevät inkongruenssin prosessointia nuotinluvun aikana. Tästä syystä nuotinlukukokeessa hyödynnettiin ETS-mittaria, joka kertoo katseen kohdan ja musiikillisen ajan välisestä etäisyydestä. Taitavien nuotinlukijoiden ETS oli pidempi, kun he lukiessaan lähestyivät inkongruenttia kohtaa, ja lyhyempi, kun he soittivat tätä samaista kohtaa. Inkongruentin kohdan lukemisen lisäksi tutkittiin kahta erilaista esitystapaa (laulaminen ja soittaminen), sillä esitystapa liittyy nuotti-informaation kääntämiseen oikeiksi motoriksiksi liikkeiksi. Vaikka osallistujat soittivat inkongruentit melodiat paremmin kuin he lauloivat ne, silmänliikkeiden tarkastelu osoitti että laulaminen saattoi silti olla osallistujille kognitiivisesti vähemmän vaativaa kuin soittaminen. Näitä havaintoja pohditaan väitöskirjatutkimuksessa esitetyn ennustusmallin sekä asiantuntijuusteorioiden valossa