Fixation duration and the learning process: an eye tracking study with subtitled videos

Abstract

Learning is a complex phenomenon and education researchers are increasingly focussing on processes that go into it. Eye tracking has become an important tool in such research. In this paper, we focus on one of the most commonly used metrics in eye tracking, namely, fixation duration. Fixation duration has been used to study cognition and attention. However, fixation duration distributions are characteristically non-normal and heavily skewed to the right. Therefore, the use of a single average value, such as the mean fixation duration, to predict cognition and/or attention could be problematic. This is especially true in studies of complex constructs, such as learning, which are governed by both cognitive and affective processes. We collected eye tracking data from 51 students watching a 12 min long educational video with and without subtitles. The learning gain after watching the video was calculated with pre- and post-test scores. Several multiple linear regression models revealed a) fixation duration can explain a substantial fraction of variation in the pre-post data, which indicates its usefulness in the study of learning processes; b) the arithmetic mean of fixation durations, which is the most commonly reported eye tracking metric, may not be the optimal choice; and c) a phenomenological model of fixation durations where the number of fixations over different temporal ranges are used as inputs seemed to perform the best. The results and their implications for learning process research are discussed.

Improving Soccer Players’ Memorization of Soccer Tactics: Effects of Visual Realism, Soccer Expertise, and Visuospatial Abilities

“…Moreover, eye movement analyses revealed that, compared to low-VSA players, high-VSA players exhibited longer eye fixations followed by shorter and slower saccades which represent focal processing and conscious perception of the presentation’s key elements. By contrast, low-VSA players had ambient spatial processing that did not enable a conscious identification of the presentation’s elements (Eisenberg & Zacks, 2016; Negi & Mitra, 2020). Second, a significant interaction between VSA and visual realism indicated that, in addition to achieving higher performance than low-VSA players, high-VSA players benefited more from reduced visual realism to memorize soccer tactics.…”

“…Indeed, a well-designed presentation should direct the user’s scanning to the desired targets with few interim fixations, which should result in quicker and larger saccades. However, added visual realism induced shorter and slower saccades, which indicates difficulties in extracting visual elements, preceded by longer fixations that indicate a greater processing demand (Negi & Mitra, 2020; Sáiz-Manzanares et al, 2021).…”

The Impact of Interface Design Element Features on Task Performance in Older Adults: Evidence from Eye-Tracking and EEG Signals

“…Gaze is the dwell of the human eye while observing a target, and most of the information acquired by the user’s eye is processed and extracted while gazing. The average duration duration reflects the processing time of the target information in the region [ 50 ]. An interface with complex information takes longer for the user to process and extract, and the duration of the duration becomes longer.…”

Digital Transformations of Classrooms in Virtual Reality

“…In the eye tracking literature, longer fixation durations correspond to engaging more with the object or increased cognitive process [30]. Fixation durations are mainly related to cognition and attention; however, it is argued that they are affected by the procedures that lead to learning and it is reported that fixation durations can be used to understand learning processes as well [43]. For instance, [15] has studied fixation patterns during learning in simulation-and microcomputer-based laboratory and found that simulation group had longer fixation duration, which means more attention and deeper cognitive processing.…”