A Comparison of a Brain-Computer Interface and an Eye Tracker: Is There a More Appropriate Technology for Controlling a Virtual Keyboard in an ALS Patient?

The ability of people affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), muscular dystrophy or spinal cord injuries to physically interact with the environment, is usually reduced. In some cases, these patients suffer from a syndrome known as locked-in syndrome (LIS), defined by the patient’s inability to make any move-ment but blinks and eye movements. Tech communication systems available for people in LIS are very limited, being those based on eye-tracking and brain-computer interface (BCI) the most useful for these patients. A comparative study between both technologies in an ALS patient is carried out: an eye tracker and a visual P300-based BCI. The purpose of the study presented in this paper is to show that the choice of the technology could depend on user´s preference. The evaluation of performance, workload and other subjective measures will allow us to determine the usability of the systems. The obtained results suggest that, even if for this patient the BCI technology is more appropriate, the technology should be always tested and adapted for each user.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

EyeScout: Active Eye Tracking for Position and Movement Independent Gaze Interaction with Large Public Displays

While gaze holds a lot of promise for hands-free interaction with public displays, remote eye trackers with their confined tracking box restrict users to a single stationary position in front of the display. We present EyeScout, an active eye tracking system that combines an eye tracker mounted on a rail system with a computational method to automatically detect and align the tracker with the user's lateral movement. EyeScout addresses key limitations of current gaze-enabled large public displays by offering two novel gaze-interaction modes for a single user: In "Walk then Interact" the user can walk up to an arbitrary position in front of the display and interact, while in "Walk and Interact" the user can interact even while on the move. We report on a user study that shows that EyeScout is well perceived by users, extends a public display's sweet spot into a sweet line, and reduces gaze interaction kick-off time to 3.5 seconds -- a 62% improvement over state of the art solutions. We discuss sample applications that demonstrate how EyeScout can enable position and movement-independent gaze interaction with large public displays

Estudo experimental do comportamento ocular em trabalhadores administrativos como um indicador de conforto visual em situação de risco de encadeamento

The daylight impact on the visual environment is fundamental on visual display terminal work (VDT). Visual performance and visual comfort should be considered for equal. The study (n=16) was performed at the experimental lighting laboratory. Office work with VDT was evaluated using STROOP task in two orientations: (with/without solar presence in the visual field). Our hypothesis states the existence of a relationship between ocular behavior and visual comfort of workers. An eye-tracker was employed in order to record the ocular gestural parameters: blinks, direction of gaze, eye aperture (Degree of eye?s openness) and pupil size, which were correlated with the vertical illuminance at the eye. Visual comfort was assessed with Glare Sensation Vote. Results indicate a strong negative linear correlation between eye illuminance and the degree of eye?s openness in the direct sunlight scenario (p=-0.636; s=0.008) and in diffuse light scenario (p=-0.661; s=0.005), that could be the main predictor of visual discomfort. This experiment allowed us to explore eye behavior patterns that could be visual comfort indices under glare risk situations.O impacto a luz do dia no ambiente visual é fundamental para o trabalho no Ecrã de Visualização de Dados (EDV). Desempenho visual e conforto visual devem ser considerados em igual. O estudo (n = 16) foi realizado no laboratório experimental de iluminação. O trabalho de escritório com EDV foi avaliado utilizando a tarefa de Stroop em duas orientações: (com / sem presença solar no campo visual). A nossa hipótese afirma a existência de uma relação entre o comportamento ocular e conforto visual dos trabalhadores. Um “eye-tracker” foi desenvolvido para gravar os parâmetros gestuais oculares: pestanejar, direção do olhar, abertura dos olhos (Grau de abertura do olho) e tamanho da pupila, que foram correlacionados com a iluminância vertical no olho. Conforto visual foi avaliado com a escala de sensação de encadeamento. Os resultados indicam uma correlação linear negativa forte entre a luminosidade dos olhos e do grau de abertura de olho no cenário de luz solar direta (p = -0,636; s = 0,008) e no cenário de luz difusa (p = -0,661; s = 0,005), que poderia ser o principal preditor de desconforto visual. Esta experiência permitiu-nos explorar padrões de comportamento do olho que poderiam ser os índices de conforto visual em situação de risco de encadeamento.Fil: Yamin Garretón, Julieta Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Rodriguez, Roberto Germán. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Pattini, Andrea Elvira. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto de Ciencias Humanas, Sociales y Ambientales; Argentin

Listening to limericks: a pupillometry investigation of perceivers’ expectancy

What features of a poem make it captivating, and which cognitive mechanisms are sensitive to these features? We addressed these questions experimentally by measuring pupillary responses of 40 participants who listened to a series of Limericks. The Limericks ended with either a semantic, syntactic, rhyme or metric violation. Compared to a control condition without violations, only the rhyme violation condition induced a reliable pupillary response. An anomaly-rating study on the same stimuli showed that all violations were reliably detectable relative to the control condition, but the anomaly induced by rhyme violations was perceived as most severe. Together, our data suggest that rhyme violations in Limericks may induce an emotional response beyond mere anomaly detection

Multimodal Observation and Interpretation of Subjects Engaged in Problem Solving

In this paper we present the first results of a pilot experiment in the capture and interpretation of multimodal signals of human experts engaged in solving challenging chess problems. Our goal is to investigate the extent to which observations of eye-gaze, posture, emotion and other physiological signals can be used to model the cognitive state of subjects, and to explore the integration of multiple sensor modalities to improve the reliability of detection of human displays of awareness and emotion. We observed chess players engaged in problems of increasing difficulty while recording their behavior. Such recordings can be used to estimate a participant's awareness of the current situation and to predict ability to respond effectively to challenging situations. Results show that a multimodal approach is more accurate than a unimodal one. By combining body posture, visual attention and emotion, the multimodal approach can reach up to 93% of accuracy when determining player's chess expertise while unimodal approach reaches 86%. Finally this experiment validates the use of our equipment as a general and reproducible tool for the study of participants engaged in screen-based interaction and/or problem solving