Scan-path analysis by the string-edit method considering fixation duration

Dynamic aspects of eye-tracking data are important but difficult to analyze. With string based approaches, a sequence of fixations is analyzed, however, fixation duration is not addressed. Cristino et al. recently proposed to re-code a scan-path with a long fixation by repeating the code. The modified scan path includes both fixation duration and sequence of fixations. In studying multiple records by the string-edit method enhanced with cost functions, we compared the performance of the modified coding against the ordinary one. Furthermore, we derived representative scan paths to examine the distance among the web pages used as stimuli. The usefulness of our approach is demonstrated.