No abstract

Human eye movements are far from being well described with current indicators. From the dataset provided by the ETRA 2019 challenge, we analyzed saccades and fixations during a free exploration of blank or natural scenes and during visual search. Based on the two modes of exploration, ambient and focal, we used the K coefficient [Krejtz et al. 2016]. We failed to find any differences between tasks but this indicator gives only the dominant mode over the entire recording. The stability of both modes, assesses with the switch frequency and the mode duration allowed to differentiate gaze behavior according to situations. Time course analyses of K coefficient and switch frequency corroborate that the latter is a useful indicator, describing a greater portion of the eye movement recording.

The study of eye movements is a common way to non-invasively understand and analyze human behavior. However, eye-tracking techniques are very hard to scale, and require expensive equipment and extensive expertise. In the context of web browsing, these issues could be overcome by studying the link between the eye and the computer mouse. Here, we propose new analysis methods, and a more advanced characterization of this link. To this end, we recorded the eye, mouse, and scroll movements of 151 participants exploring 18 dynamic web pages while performing free viewing and visual search tasks for 20 s. The data revealed significant differences of eye, mouse, and scroll parameters over time which stabilize at the end of exploration. This suggests the existence of a task-independent relationship between eye, mouse, and scroll parameters, which are characterized by two distinct patterns: one common pattern for movement parameters and a second for dwelling/fixation parameters. Within these patterns, mouse and eye movements remained consistent with each other, while the scrolling behaved the opposite way.