Visual Attention and Gaze Behavior in Games: An Object-Based Approach

In the design of interactive applications, notably games, a recent trend is to understand player behavior by investigating telemetry logs as is the focus of many chapters in this book or by integrating the use of psychophysics as is the subject of Chaps. 26 and 27. In addition to these valuable methods, measuring, where players are likely to focus, could be a very useful tool in the arsenal of game designers. This knowledge can be utilized to help game designers decide how and where to allocate computing resources, such as rendering and various kinds of simulations of physical properties. This leaves as many computing cycles as possible free to carry out other tasks. Therefore, the perceived realism of a game can be increased by perceptually optimizing calculations that are computationally intensive, including physically based lighting (e.g. ray-tracing Cater et al. 2003), animations (e.g. crowds of characters McDonnell et al. 2009), physically correct simulations of the interaction of materials (e.g. collision detection (O’Sullivan 2005), natural behavior of clothes or fluids etc.). Level of Detail variants of simulation or rendering techniques can be used in regions which are less attended by the player, while accurate simulations can be used within the expected focus of a user. Verifying or improving game mechanics and AI could be other uses.