Are You Really Looking? Finding the Answer through Fixation Patterns and EEG

  • Authors:

  • Anne-Marie Brouwer;Maarten A. Hogervorst;Pawel Herman;Frank Kooi

  • Affiliations:

  • TNO Human Factors, Soesterberg, The Netherlands 3769 ZG;TNO Human Factors, Soesterberg, The Netherlands 3769 ZG;Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, The Netherlands;TNO Human Factors, Soesterberg, The Netherlands 3769 ZG

  • Venue:
  • FAC '09 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Foundations of Augmented Cognition. Neuroergonomics and Operational Neuroscience: Held as Part of HCI International 2009
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Eye movement recordings do not tell us whether observers are 'really looking' or whether they are paying attention to something else than the visual environment. We want to determine whether an observer's main current occupation is visual or not by investigating fixation patterns and EEG. Subjects were presented with auditory and visual stimuli. In some conditions, they focused on the auditory information whereas in others they searched or judged the visual stimuli. Observers made more fixations that are less cluttered in the visual compared to the auditory tasks, and they were less variable in their average fixation location. Fixated features revealed which target the observers were looking for. Gaze was not attracted more by salient features when performing the auditory task. 8-12 Hz EEG oscillations recorded over the parieto-occipital regions were stronger during the auditory task than during visual search. Our results are directly relevant for monitoring surveillance workers.