Towards gaze-mediated interaction: Collecting solutions of the "Midas touch problem"

For a development of truly user-centered interfaces we need to take into account not only generic characteristics of human beings but also actual dynamics of attention and intentions of persons involved in an interaction. Modern eyetracking methods are indispensable tools in such a development, as they allow the use of eye movement data for control of output devices, for gaze-contingent image processing and for desambiguation of verbal as well as nonverbal information. The main obstacle on the way to these applications is the so-called “Midas touch problem”: how to differentiate “attentive” saccades with intended goal of communication from the lower level eye movements that are just random or provoked by external stimulation? We report results of our investigations of the problem and present a solution based on a functional classification of fixations correlated with their duration. Several additional solutions are also considered together with the data on the trainability of the human oculomotor system.

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