![]() ![]() Q: What is it about open source software and Python in particular that lends itself so well to your work?ĭalmaijer: Well, for starters, it's free. It also seems that pupils increase or decrease their size in expectation of where you will be moving your eyes. For example, your pupils increase in size in anticipation to reward, but also in surprise (e.g., for not getting a reward). Interest in this technique is currently peaking again, and people are finding all sorts of things. By closely monitoring the velocity and trajectory of your saccades (very quick eye movements), we can learn a lot about the basic properties of attention and the motor system.įinally, we can use eye trackers to measure pupil size. In addition, the dynamics of your eye movements can tell us all sorts of things about what distracts you, and what motivates you. Do they see the company logo, or are they too distracted by the model in the skimpy outfit? (Sex doesn't always sell!) It can also be useful in applied research-marketing researchers love eye tracking because it can tell them where people look at in their advertisements. This can tell us what kind of visual information we use to make sense of the world around us. This can be important for basic research, for example when we want to know what features attract attention. If I record where you were looking, I can figure out what attracts your attention. Q: What is the purpose of eye tracking? How does that help in your research?ĭalmaijer: Most of the time, where people look is also where they're attention is. This is quite important, as scripting mistakes are easy to make and miss with only one pair of eyes. Open source eye tracking code#Here, sharing code is equally vital it helps us share good code and scrutinize each others' work. ![]() Academics come up with really clever ways of looking at their data and visualizing their analyses in incredibly pretty figures. It's not only data acquisition that can be a pain analyses can get really complicated too. You see this happening with PyGaze, where an increasingly large group of users find and solve issues. An added bonus is that colleagues can collaborate on their software, reducing the chances of persistent bugs. So, open source saves us time and money on software development. If we all share our custom software, we do not have to reinvent the wheel every time we need to use new hardware. Obviously, other people in my field are doing the same. We also keep adding functionality for other things, including game controllers and joysticks, webcams, and devices that can monitor physiology. PyGaze is a good example of this: it bundles code for a large range of different eye trackers from different manufacturers into a single interface. Once I manage to talk to such a piece of obscure hardware, I incorporate its functionality in a more user-friendly library. ![]() As a researcher who relies on these products, you often hack your way around SDKs and APIs until you find something that works for you. This hardware is often sold by small vendors that do not have time for direct support or specific coding documentation. In research, we often deal with very obscure hardware that does awfully specific things, such as tracking test subjects' eye movements or pupil response, their brain waves, their grip force, and whatever weird thing you can think of. Are you an open source enthusiast?ĭalmaijer: My work as a researcher in experimental psychology requires me to program experiments, analyses, and sometimes entire software libraries or graphical user interfaces. bundles code for a large range of different eye trackers from different manufacturers into a single interface. Most of the time, where people look is also where they're attention is. In this interview, the lead developer for the project, Edwin Dalmaijer, who works at the University of Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology doing research and programming, provides a fascinating description of PyGaze and the significance of eye tracking in research. I also wanted to know more about the project and how it is contributing to research and its implications for open source. The website told me that it runs on Linux, but I wanted to learn more about eye tracking and the role it plays in psychological research. I have a deep interest in educational psychology, and so I was fascinated by what I read about PyGaze-an open source toolbox for eye tracking in Python. In the note he referenced PyGaze, an open source project I might be interested in. Don WatkinsA few of weeks ago I got a email from a friend who was attending an education technology conference. ![]()
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