Using eye tracking to measure visual responses

Abstract: Eye tracking technology is becoming more accessible in general, presenting new opportunities for applications. Said technology is also a relatively new and unexplored tool that can be used in research to enable insights not previously available. In this report, we use eye tracking to investigate whether the gaze of a human-like robot can have an impact on the ability to process visual cues, by directing our gaze towards or away from said cues. We used data from an eye tracking study, conducted by Morillo-Mendez et al., as basis for our report. The study contained two different types of trials, where participants sat in front of a robot that either turned its head towards or away from a stimulus on a screen. The eye tracking data was used to separately compare response time and reaction time from the two trial types and it was found that the both were faster on average in trials where the robot looked towards the correct screen.