Change blindness: eradication of gestalt strategies

Arrays of eight, texture-defined rectangles were used as stimuli in a one-shot change blindness (CB) task where there was a 50% chance that one rectangle would change orientation between two successive presentations separated by an interval. CB was eliminated by cueing the target rectangle in the first stimulus, reduced by cueing in the interval and unaffected by cueing in the second presentation. This supports the idea that a representation was formed that persisted through the interval before being 'overwritten' by the second presentation (Landman et al, 2003 Vision Research 43149–164]. Another possibility is that participants used some kind of grouping or Gestalt strategy. To test this we changed the spatial position of the rectangles in the second presentation by shifting them along imaginary spokes (by ±1 degree) emanating from the central fixation point. There was no significant difference seen in performance between this and the standard task [F(1,4)=2.565, p=0.185]. This may suggest two things: (i) Gestalt grouping is not used as a strategy in these tasks, and (ii) it gives further weight to the argument that objects may be stored and retrieved from a pre-attentional store during this task

Relevant abuse? Investigating the effects of an abusive subtitling procedure on the perception of TV anime using eye tracker and questionnaire

The storage capacity of DVD means multiple subtitle streams can be included on one disc. This has allowed some producers to include subtitle streams with experimental procedures that we will term as "abusive" subtitles (Nornes 1999). Abusive subtitles break subtitling norms in an attempt to be more faithful to the source text and increase the translator's visibility. This thesis focuses on one such abusive procedure, namely the pop-up gloss. It refers to pop-up notes that explain culturally marked items appearing in each of the semiotic channels. Already popular with amateur subtitlers of anime (Japanese animation), pop-up gloss has come to percolate into commercially released anime DVD. This thesis investigates the question as to what effect the use of pop-up gloss has on viewer perception of TV anime in terms of positive cognitive effects (PCEs) and processing effort. A second question seeks to ask the validity of pupillometric measurements for measuring the processing effort experienced while viewing subtitled AV content. A novel methodology is applied where PCEs are measured using traditional questionnaire data, while processing effort is measured using a combination of questionnaire-based data, and fixation-based and pupillometric data gathered with an eye tracker. A study with 20 subjects indicates that the use of pop-up gloss does increase the PCEs experienced by subjects regarding items the pop-up gloss describes, while more processing effort is required by viewers when pop-up gloss is used. The analysis of pupillometric data suggests that they are suitable for measuring processing effort during the viewing of subtitled AV content

Engineering data compendium. Human perception and performance. User's guide

The concept underlying the Engineering Data Compendium was the product of a research and development program (Integrated Perceptual Information for Designers project) aimed at facilitating the application of basic research findings in human performance to the design and military crew systems. The principal objective was to develop a workable strategy for: (1) identifying and distilling information of potential value to system design from the existing research literature, and (2) presenting this technical information in a way that would aid its accessibility, interpretability, and applicability by systems designers. The present four volumes of the Engineering Data Compendium represent the first implementation of this strategy. This is the first volume, the User's Guide, containing a description of the program and instructions for its use

Measuring cognitive load and cognition: metrics for technology-enhanced learning

This critical and reflective literature review examines international research published over the last decade to summarise the different kinds of measures that have been used to explore cognitive load and critiques the strengths and limitations of those focussed on the development of direct empirical approaches. Over the last 40 years, cognitive load theory has become established as one of the most successful and influential theoretical explanations of cognitive processing during learning. Despite this success, attempts to obtain direct objective measures of the theory's central theoretical construct – cognitive load – have proved elusive. This obstacle represents the most significant outstanding challenge for successfully embedding the theoretical and experimental work on cognitive load in empirical data from authentic learning situations. Progress to date on the theoretical and practical approaches to cognitive load are discussed along with the influences of individual differences on cognitive load in order to assess the prospects for the development and application of direct empirical measures of cognitive load especially in technology-rich contexts

The dual pathway to information avoidance in information systems use

This article develops an explanatory model of information avoidance behavior from extant theory and examines its hypotheses using psychophysiological methods. It integrates existing but partially conflicting explanations into a coherent positivist model based on Coping Theory. The existence of two distinct but interlinked causal pathways to information avoidance will be outlined. Both pathways are cause by defects in the information quality. The first pathway is grounded on being threatened by the information’s inconsistency. The second pathway is based on being distressed by the information’s complexity. Due to the involvement of cognition as well as affect, the usefulness of traditional measurement methods alone is deemed to be limited. Thus, we will draw upon recent advances from NeuroIS research in order to integrate psychophysiological measures into an extended, triangulated measurement protocol. This article intends to contribute to this special issue in three ways. First, it shapes a theoretical model for studying information avoidance which has received little attention in IS research. Second, it exemplifies the derivation and instantiation of a NeuroIS measurement model and the selection of appropriate NeuroIS methods for scrutinizing the theoretical information avoidance model. Third, based on the evidence of an experiment, it provides guidelines for how to conduct eye-tracking, pupillometry, and facial electromyography measurements as well as how to subsequently derive meaning from the initial data collected

Short-term effects of text-background color combinations on the dynamics of the accommodative response

The purpose of the present study was to assess the accommodative response and pupillary dynamics while reading passages with different text-background color combinations on an LCD screen. Twenty healthy young adults read fourteen 2-min passages designed with fourteen different color combinations between text and background, while the accommodative and pupil responses were continuously measured with a binocular open-field autorefractometer. Our results revealed that the text-background color combination modulates the accommodative and pupillary dynamics during a 2-minutes reading task. The blue-red combination induced a heightened accommodative response, whereas positive polarities were associated with more variability of the accommodative response and smaller pupil sizes. Participants reported lower perceived ratings of legibility for text-background color combination with lower luminance contrast (white-yellow). The manipulation of text-background color did not have a significant effect on reading speed. These results may have important applications in the design of digital visual interfaces.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, with support from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), RTI2018-094738-B-I00 project

Trial application of pupillometry for a maritime usability study in field conditions

Eye-tracking is a tool employed in usability testing. It is primarily intended as a means for tracking the visual attention patterns of an observer on a continuous basis. Eye-tracking can also capture certain physiological data, such as pupil dilation. Pupil diameter is a validated metric of cognitive workload, meaning the pupil dilates with increasing workload. This research evaluates the fitness, in field conditions, of an eye-tracking based method for accurate measurement of cognitive workload. This implies evaluating the fitness of this tool in changing light conditions such as in coastal navigation. This methodology thus accounts for the effect of light on pupil dilation. This means we are able to account for the effect of only cognitive workload on the pupil dilation even in changing light conditions. This method was applied as a part of an analysis of a navigational exercise involving the navigator and the navigator’s assistant on board a training vessel of the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy. Pupillometry is used alongside egocentric video recordings and Geo-positioning systems (GPS) recordings to allow for multi-faceted evaluation of the activity. Subjective data was recorded as well to evaluate the quality of the eye-tracking data. Subjective data was recorded using NASA-TLX self-report of mental workload, self-report of mental workload (on three levels) using maps and an expert assessment of the mental workload was obtained for the navigational course. The analysis concluded that pupillometry (through eye-trackers) can have a substantial role in the evaluation of field operations and provide a good and objective estimate of the perceived workload. The eye-tracking technology has substantial limitations, for example sometimes strong infra-red sources of light can impede data collection as such with an eye-tracker, meaning the analysis is labour intensive as it relies on the ability of the operator to filter out low quality data and retain the rest

Exploring the applicability of implicit relevance measures in varying reading speed for adaptive I.R. systems

Projecte realitzat en el marc d’un programa de mobilitat amb la University of Helsinki. Faculty of Science. Department of Computer ScienceThis thesis goes further in the study of implicit indicators used to infer interest in documents for information retrieval tasks. We study the behavior of two different categories of implicit indicators: fixation-derived features and physiology (pupil size, electrodermal activity). Based on the limited number of participants at our disposal we study how these measures react when addressing documents at three different reading rates. Most of the fixation-derived features are reported to differ significantly when reading at different speeds. Furthermore, the ability of pupil size and electrodermal activity to indicate perceived relevance is found intrinsically dependent on speed of reading. That is, when users read at comfortable reading speed, these measures are found to be able to correctly discriminate relevance judgments, but fail when increasing the addressed speed of reading. Therefore, the outcomes of this thesis strongly suggest to take into account reading speed when designing highly adaptive information retrieval systems

Exploring the applicability of implicit relevance measures in varying reading speed for adaptive I.R. systems

This thesis goes further in the study of implicit indicators used to infer interest in documents for information retrieval tasks. We study the behavior of two different categories of implicit indicators: fixation-derived features (number of fixations, average time of fixations, regression ratio, length of forward saccades), and physiology (pupil dilation, electrodermal activity). Based on the limited number of participants at our disposal we study how these measures react when addressing documents at three different reading rates. Most of the fixation-derived features are reported to differ significantly when reading at different speeds. Furthermore, the ability of pupil size and electrodermal activity to indicate perceived relevance is found intrinsically dependent on speed of reading. That is, when users read at comfortable reading speed, these measures are found to be able to correctly discriminate relevance judgments, but fail when increasing the addressed speed of reading. Therefore, the outcomes of this thesis strongly suggest to take into account reading speed when designing highly adaptive information retrieval systems