Scanpaths of motion sequences : where people look when watching movies

Magnification around the most important point of a movie scene (center of interest COI) might be an effective aid for people with vision impairments that cause resolution loss. This requires that a COI exist for most video frames. Operationally, we defined the COI by recording the eye movements of normallysighted subjects as they watched movies. More than half of the time most of the subjects looked within an area that was less than 12% of the movie scene. Male and older subjects were more likely to look in the same direction than female and younger subjects. THE SCHEPENS EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE An Affiliate of Harvard Medical School Robert B. Goldstein, Ph.D. Senior Computer Analyst The Schepens Eye Research Institute, 20 Staniford Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114 E.Mail: bobg@vision.eri.harvard.edu Phone: (617) 912-2512 FAX: (617) 912-0112 July 28, 2005 Blaire V. Mossman Managing Editor P.O. Box 13177 Scottsdale, AZ 85267 Dear Dr. Mossman, The accompanying documents are the submission of our paper to be considered for publication in the special issue of Computers in Biology and Medicine that will be devoted to the recent “Fourth Starkfest Conference on Vision and Movement in Men and Machines” held May 26-27, 2005 at the University of California, Berkley. The Chairs of the conference were Dr. Claudio Privetera of the University of California, Berkeley and Dr. John Semmlow of the Rutgers State University of New Jersey. Much of the material in this paper was presented at that conference, though since then we have improved our data processing and revised some of our analyses. Paper Title: “Scanpaths of motion sequences: Where people look when watching movies” Corresponding Author: Dr. Robert B. Goldstein The Schepens Eye Research Institute 20 Staniford Street Boston, MA, 02114 USA. E-mail: bobg@vision.eri.harvard.edu Phone number: 617 912 2512 Fax number: 617 912 0112 Yours truly, Robert B. Goldstein, Ph.D. Senior Computer Analyst, Schepens Eye Research Institute Harvard Medical School Accompanying Letter Scanpaths of motion sequences: where people look when watching movies 1 Scanpaths of motion sequences: Where people look when watching movies Robert B. Goldstein, Russell L. Woods, and Eli Peli, The Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA Abstract— Magnification around the most important point of a movie scene (center of interest COI) might be an effective aid for people with vision impairments that cause resolution loss. This requires that a COI exist for most video frames. Operationally, we defined the COI by recording the eye movements of normally-sighted subjects as they watched movies. More than half of the time most of the subjects looked within an area that was less than 12% of the movie scene. Male and older subjects were more likely to look in the same direction than female and younger subjects. Magnification around the most important point of a movie scene (center of interest COI) might be an effective aid for people with vision impairments that cause resolution loss. This requires that a COI exist for most video frames. Operationally, we defined the COI by recording the eye movements of normally-sighted subjects as they watched movies. More than half of the time most of the subjects looked within an area that was less than 12% of the movie scene. Male and older subjects were more likely to look in the same direction than female and younger subjects. Key Words— Eye Movements, Magnification, Scanpath, Video, Visual Aids, Low Vision, Television. Corresponding author: Dr. Robert B. Goldstein The Schepens Eye Research Institute 20 Staniford Street Boston, MA, 02114 USA. E-mail: bobg@eri.harvard.edu Phone number: 617 912 2512 Fax number: 617 912 0112 Supported in part by NIH Grants EY05975 and EY12890. Manuscript Scanpaths of motion sequences: where people look when watching movies 2