Anticipatory Gaze Dynamics in Human-to-Human Object Handover.

The environment often engages multiple sensory channels simultaneously. When events or objects stimulate more than one sensory organ, they are more likely to be detected and more efficiently processed than events stimulating just one sensory modality (e.g. Stein & Stanford, 2008). Such crossmodal enhancement requires that the sensory inputs arising from one event are correctly assigned to that object (termed the ‘correspondence problem’; Ernst & Bulthoff, 2004). Multisensory research has demonstrated that features that are shared by all sensory systems, such as space, time or meaning are used for crossmodal binding (for recent reviews see Driver & Noesselt, 2008; Stein & Stanford, 2008). For example, in a cocktail party setting, matching of the temporal dynamics of lip movements and of speech sound allows us to assign the correct message to each speaker. Furthermore, this ability of crossmodal binding assists in orienting spatial attention to a particular conversation partner while ignoring other sources of distracting sensory information, such as other peoples’ conversations. The binding of synchronous auditory and visual (speech) signals seems to happen automatically and pre-attentively (see Driver, 1996; Bertelson et al., 2000; Vroomen et al., 2001a). The voluntary orienting of spatial attention to one particular speaker or, more generally, to an event is an example of endogenous attention allocation. By contrast, stimulus-driven orienting of spatial attention, elicited by the saliency of the stimulus, has been termed exogenous attention. Due to their relatively high salience, such pre-attentively detected, congruent cross-modal stimuli may function as exogenous attentional cues (Spence & Driver, 2000; Stekelenburg et al., 2004; Senkowski et al., 2008). In this issue, Fairhall & Macaluso (2009) provide evidence for the operation of both mechanisms: (i) pre-attentively crossmodal matching and (ii) enhancement of crossmodal interaction by endogenous attention. The authors presented the lips of two speaking faces, one in the left and one in the right visual hemifield. The centrally presented auditory stream was matched with the lip movements of one speaker only. In such a situation people generally perceive the auditory speech signal as originating from the location of the matching lips. This phenomenon is well known as the ‘ventriloquist effect’. Critically, Fairhall and Macaluso also asked participants to perform a visual detection task in one hemifield only. This task served to systematically manipulate the focus of visual spatial attention. The auditory stream did not have any significance to the participants and thus could be ignored. This paradigm allowed the authors to compare brain responses as assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to multisensory, matching audio-visual speech sequences that occurred either at the location of visual spatial attention (‘congruent condition’) or on the opposite side (‘incongruent condition’) while keeping physical stimulation constant. The authors report that visual attention enhances activity in brain regions well accepted as multisensory integration areas (Driver & Noesselt, 2008), such as the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the superior colliculus (SC), only when the auditory track matched the attended lip movements. Similar effects were observed in several visual brain regions, including the primary visual cortex. These results suggest that the processing of congruent cross-modal stimuli within the locus of endogenous visual spatial attention is enhanced. Furthermore, the data of Fairhall & Macaluso are compatible with the view that binding of audio-visual speech can occur pre-attentively. When audio-visual matching speech was presented on the opposite side of the locus of visual-spatial attention (incongruent condition), participants performed worse in the visual detection task than when matching stimuli were presented on the same side as the focus of participant’s endogenous visual spatial attention (congruent condition). These behavioural results, together with findings from earlier studies (Spence & Driver, 2000; Vroomen et al., 2001b), suggest that the audio-visual binding process that elicited a ventriloquist illusion towards the opposite side of the visual attention focus took place outside the locus of endogenous attention and resulted in an exogenously attentional shift towards the task irrelevant side, which in turn interfered with the visual detection task. In summary, the results described by Fairhall and Macaluso suggest that endogenous (visual) spatial attention amplifies the processing of congruent cross-modal input that is likely integrated and detected pre-attentively. Fairhall and Macaluso did not attempt to link the enhanced activity in multisensory and early visual cortical regions to behavioural data such as, for example, improved speech comprehension. The question of whether activity changes in multisensory regions due to endogenous spatial attention are accompanied by altered multisensory performance (Alsius et al., 2005) remains to be investigated in future work. Moreover, other top-down influences on multisensory integration such as plausibility and meaning (Kitagawa & Spence, 2005; Hein et al., 2007) will need to be investigated in more detail to extend our understanding of the conditions when and which multisensory binding processes are subject to voluntary modulation. European Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 29, pp. 1245–1246, 2009 doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06715.x

Background: Previous research has explored gender differences in visuo-spatial intelligence and gaze behaviour; however, no comprehensive review has synthesised findings across parameters or examined their underlying causes. Aim: This review critically evaluates literature on gender differences in gaze behaviour and visuo-spatial intelligence. It integrates findings from visual software (cognitive and perceptual processes) and visual hardware (biological and physiological capacities), identifies methodological inconsistencies, and examines sociocultural moderators influencing performance. A dual-framework approach is proposed to explain the interaction between these domains. Method: Electronic searches were carried out across multiple databases, including Current Contents, ScienceDirect, EBM Reviews, CISTI Source (1990–February 2025), Google Scholar, SportDiscus (1990–February 2025), PubMed (1990–February 2025), the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and various international e-catalogues. Results: Seventy-seven full-text articles were reviewed. Consistent gender differences were observed in both biological capacities and cognitive strategies, although methodological variations contributed to inconsistencies. Sociocultural factors such as play experience and training exposure were identified as influential moderators. Conclusion: Gender differences in visio-spatial skills reflect biological, cognitive and social influences. An interactionist framework is recommended for future research. Contribution: This review advances understanding by introducing the distinction between ‘visual hardware’ and ‘visual software’, critically evaluating eye-tracking research and proposing a more nuanced interactionist framework for future investigations.

We aim to identify the salient objects in an image by applying a model of visual attention. We automate the process by predicting those objects in an image that are most likely to be the focus of someone's visual attention. Concretely, we first generate fixation maps from the eye tracking data, which express the ground truth of people's visual attention for each training image. Then, we extract the high-level features based on the bag-of-visual-words image representation as input attributes along with the fixation maps to train a support vector regression model. With this model, we can predict a new query image's saliency. Our experiments show that the model is capable of providing a good estimate for human visual attention in test images sets with one salient object and multiple salient objects. In this way, we seek to reduce the redundant information within the scene, and thus provide a more accurate depiction of the scene.

The current study aimed to quantitatively assess differences in gaze behaviour between participants grouped on the basis of their age and measures of functional mobility during a virtual walking paradigm. The gaze behaviour of nine young adults, seven older adults with a relatively low risk of falling and seven older adults with a relatively higher risk of falling was measured while they watched five first-person perspective movies representing the viewpoint of a pedestrian walking through various environments. Participants also completed a number of cognitive tests: Stroop task, visual search, trail making task, Mini Mental Status Examination, and reaction time, visual tests (visual acuity and contrast sensitivity) and assessments of balance (Activities Balance Confidence Scale and Berg Balance Scale) to aid in the interpretation of differences in gaze behaviour. The high risk older adult group spent significantly more time fixating aspects of the travel path than the low risk and young adult groups. High risk older adults were also significantly slower in performing a number of the cognitive tasks than young adults. Correlations were conducted to compare the extent to which travel path fixation durations co-varied with scores on the tests of visual search, motor, and cognitive function. A positive significant correlation was found between the speed of response to the incongruent Stroop task and travel path fixation duration r21 =0.44, p<0.05. The results indicate that our movie-viewing paradigm can identify differences in gaze behaviour between participants grouped on the basis of their age and measures of functional mobility and that these differences are associated with cognitive decline.

This study explores the potential of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) to enhance “digital reading” experiences, one of the most common computer-based learning methods in higher education. To this end, we conducted a comparative analysis of interaction designs between a Graphical User Interface (GUI)-based reading system and an HRI system that provides reflective and empathic feedback through a humanoid robot. A comprehensive dataset, including eye-tracking and self-report data, was collected to analyze the additional value HRI can offer compared to traditional GUI-based systems through both objective and subjective indicators. Based on the hypothesis that ‘reflection’ and ‘empathy’ in robot feedback play a critical role in learning support within HRI design, we compared the two systems across four dimensions: 1) reading behavior analysis using eye-tracking data, 2) cognitive performance evaluation through pre- and post-tests, 3) perceived interaction quality measured by the AttrakDiff questionnaire, and 4) social perception of the interface assessed through the Social Presence questionnaire. The results showed that HRI-based digital reading positively influenced learners’ attentional focus, robot-looking behavior, and page re-trace actions, leading to sustained changes in learning behaviors beyond short-term effects. Furthermore, the HRI condition demonstrated higher knowledge gain, more positive hedonic experiences, and stronger social presence compared to the GUI condition. These findings suggest that reflective and empathic feedback design within HRI can effectively enhance digital reading learning experiences.

ObjectivesAs crimes unfold, how is situational information channeled into decisions? Methodological tools capable of answering this question can advance criminological theory and research. This preregistered study introduces Focal Visual Attention (FVA) as a decision-making construct for measuring visual information processing during realistic, dynamic crime-related scenarios.MethodsWe recruited 262 German-speaking male participants who viewed two 5-minute immersive 360° videos depicting a personal provocation and a witnessed sexual harassment incident in a bar from a point-of-view perspective. Eye-tracking recorded ~ 4.35 million gaze points. Post hoc, mean-shift clustering, an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm, identified regions of interest (ROIs). Fixations within these ROIs served as proxies for FVA. Linear mixed-effects models examined temporal changes in FVA and associations with individual characteristics.ResultsOverall, visual attention to conflict-relevant stimuli increased over time, with additional avoidance fixations toward exits. Participants with histories of violence and/or prior police involvement showed distinct attention patterns. FVA also varied with self-reported emotions, cognitive appraisals of risk and benefit, and intentions to respond aggressively.ConclusionsFVA provides a robust, quantifiable measure of moment-to-moment visual attention in crime and analogous decision making. Methodologically, this study demonstrates a scalable framework for analyzing high-density eye-tracking data using immersive 360° video and unsupervised machine learning. Substantively, the findings extend our understanding of crime decision making with potential to inform research in policing, situational crime prevention, and fear-of-crime.

Gaze plays an important role in human-human communication. Adequate gaze control of a virtual agent is also essential for successful and believable human-agent interaction. Researchers on HAI have developed gaze control models by taking account of gaze duration, frequency, and timing of gaze aversion. However, cultural differences in gaze behaviors have not been focused enough. We aimed to investigate cultural differences in gaze behaviors and their perception by developing virtual agents with Japanese gaze behaviors, American gaze behaviors, and fixed gaze behaviors. We then compared their effects on the impressions of the agents and interactions. Our first experimental results with Japanese participants suggested that the impression of the agent is affected by participants' shyness and familiarity of the gaze patterns performed by the agent. This paper reports the results of our second experiment that investigated the effects of the gender of agents and the gender of participants on perception of culture-specific gaze behaviors. The preliminary results suggests there are differences between the gender of participants and agents on the perception of favorable gaze behaviors. The female participants had a better impression on the agent of the same gender that performed the American gaze behavior, while the male participants preferred the agents with the Japanese gaze behavior. These results indicate favorable gaze behaviors vary according to users' gender and agents' gender.

Visual-Spatial Attention in Developmental Dyslexia

This paper reports on a study which compared two tools for tracking the focus of visual attention - a remote eye tracker and the Restricted Focus Viewer (RFV). The RFV tool blurs the stimuli in order to simulate human vision; the user controls the portion of the screen which is in focus with a computer mouse. Both tools were used by eighteen participants debugging three Java programs for ten minutes each. The results in terms of debugging accuracy and debugging behavior were compared using the restricting view condition of the RFV and a measuring tool as factors.The results show that while the debugging performance and the distribution of the time spent on areas of interest (AOI) are not influenced by the restricting view condition, the dynamics of programming behavior is different. The number of switches between the AOIs as measured by the RFV significantly differed from those measured by the eye tracker. Also the number of switches under the restricted and unrestricted RFV condition was significantly different. We maintain that the RFV must be used with caution to measure the switches of visual attention.

ABSTRACTThe aim of the current study was twofold: (1) to validate the use of action sport cameras for quantifying focus of visual attention in sailing and (2) to apply this method to examine whether an external focus of attention is associated with better performance in upwind sailing. To test the validity of this novel quantification method, we first calculated the agreement between gaze location measures and head orientation measures in 13 sailors sailing upwind during training regattas using a head mounted eye tracker. The results confirmed that for measuring visual focus of attention in upwind sailing, the agreement for the two measures was high (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.97) and the 95% limits of agreement were acceptable (between −8.0% and 14.6%). In a next step, we quantified the focus of visual attention in sailing upwind as fast as possible by means of an action sport camera. We captured sailing performance, operationalised as boat speed in the direction of the wind, and environmental conditions using a GPS, compass and wind meter. Four trials, each lasting 1 min, were analysed for 15 sailors each, resulting in a total of 30 upwind speed trials on port tack and 30 upwind speed trials on starboard tack. The results revealed that in sailing – within constantly changing environments – the focus of attention is not a significant predictor for better upwind sailing performances. This implicates that neither external nor internal foci of attention was per se correlated with better performances. Rather, relatively large interindividual differences seem to indicate that different visual attention strategies can lead to similar performance outcomes.

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Mobile eye-tracking research has provided evidence both on teachers' visual attention in relation to their intentions and on teachers’ student-centred gaze patterns. However, the importance of a teacher’s eye-movements when giving instructions is unexplored. In this study we used mobile eye-tracking to investigate six teachers’ gaze patterns when they are giving task instructions for a geometry problem in four different phases of a mathematical problem-solving lesson. We analysed the teachers’ eye-tracking data, their verbal data, and classroom video recordings. Our paper brings forth a novel interpretative lens for teacher’s pedagogical intentions communicated by gaze during teacher-led moments such as when introducing new tasks, reorganizing the social structures of students for collaboration, and lesson wrap-ups. A change in the students’ task changes teachers’ gaze patterns, which may indicate a change in teacher’s pedagogical intention. We found that teachers gazed at students throughout the lesson, whereas teachers’ focus was at task-related targets during collaborative instruction-giving more than during the introductory and reflective task instructions. Hence, we suggest two previously not detected gaze types: contextualizing gaze for task readiness and collaborative gaze for task focus to contribute to the present discussion on teacher gaze

In a preliminary exploratory study, our goal was to train deep neural network models to mimic children's and/or adults' gaze behavior in certain social situations to reach this objective. Additionally, we aim to identify potential differences in gaze behavior between these two age groups based on our participants' gaze data. Furthermore, we aimed to assess the practical effectiveness of our adult and children models by deploying them on a Nao robot in real-life settings. To achieve this, we first created two video clips, one animation and one live-action, to depict some social situations. Using an eye-tracking device, we collected eye-tracking data from 24 participants, including 12 children and 12 adults. Then, we utilized deep neural networks, specifically LSTM and Transformer Networks, to analyze and model the gaze patterns of each group of participants. Our results indicate that when the models attempted to predict people's locations (in the next frame), they had an accuracy in the range of 62%-70% with one attempt, which increased by ~20% when attempted twice (i.e. the two highest-ranked predicted labels as outputs). As expected, the result underscores that gaze behavior is not a wholly unique phenomenon. We obtained feedback from 57 new participants to evaluate the robot's functionality. These participants were asked to watch two videos of the robot's performance in each mode and then complete a comprehensive questionnaire. The questionnaire results indicate that the participants expressed satisfaction with the robot's interaction, including its attention, intelligence, and responsiveness to human actions. However, they did not perceive the robot as a social companion comparable to a human. This exploratory study tries to address/show potentials of the social acceptance of robots based on human nonverbal behavioral cues for future research.

Interactive effects of users’ openness and robot reliability on trust: evidence from psychological intentions, task performance, visual behaviours, and cerebral activations

In adulthood, research has demonstrated that surrounding the spatial location of attentional focus is a suppressive field, resulting from top-down attention promoting the processing of relevant stimuli and inhibiting surrounding distractors (e.g., Hopf et al., 2006). It is not fully known, however, how this phenomenon manifests during development. This is an important question since attention processes are likely even more critical in development because of their potential impact on learning and day-to-day activities. The current study examined whether spatial suppression surrounding the focus of visual attention, a predicted by-product of top-down attentional modulation, is observed in development. A wide age range separated in six incremental age levels was included, allowing for a detailed examination of potential differences in the effect of attention on visual processing across development. Participants between 12 and 27 years of age exhibited spatial suppression surrounding their focus of visual attention. Their accuracy increased as a function of the separation distance between a spatially cued (and attended) target and a second target, suggesting that a ring of suppression surrounded the attended target. Attentional surround suppression was not observed in 8- to 11-years-olds, even with a longer spatial cue presentation time, demonstrating that the lack of the effect at these ages is not due to slowed attentional feedback processes. Our findings demonstrate that top-down attentional processes exhibit functional maturity beginning around 12 years of age with continuing maturation of their expression until 17, which likely impacts education and the diagnosis of visual and cognitive clinical pathologies.