1.2 Eyetracking

Eyetracker technology has proven very useful in developing advertisements and websites, as it allows researchers to see what people look at, in what order and for how long.

In the following video, Hayley Ness (a psychologist from The Open University) demonstrates eyetracker technology. The eyetracker is able to work out the exact point of a computer monitor that someone is looking at, and to track this point of focus as the person looks at different points of the screen.

Download this video clip.Video player: ou_futurelearn_psychology_vid_1008.mp4

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Transcript

[MUSIC]

DR HAYLEY NESS

This is an eye tracker and it allows us to accurately measure where people are looking and for how long within an image or a video. This is very important because people quite often don't remember what they were looking at.

FEMALE

Count how many time this red file is passed from one person to another in the next twenty seconds. Ready, start counting.

End transcript

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Eyetracking has also proven invaluable to psychologists, as it provides a record of exactly what a participant focuses on. In the ‘Eyetracking’ video, the participant watches the ‘Observation test’ video showing her ‘inattentional blindess’ while her eyes are being tracked. The computer shows where the participant is looking by drawing a blue line. You will see that the participant is fixated on the red folder as it is passed around, and does not focus on the mouse at all.