Research on a spatial–temporal characterisation of blink-triggered eye control interactions

Abstract

Eye-controlled human–computer interface (ECHCI) system is gradually becoming the focus of audience attention, owing to its humanistic, natural, and intuitive characteristics, which provide services for a wider range of user groups. We conducted a study on the ECHCI with “gaze locking + blink trigger” as the interaction method in the temporal dimension and the spatial dimension respectively and explored the optimisation of blink trigger actions. First, the optimal lock time of the interactive object (IO) was 650 ms, and a subjective evaluation experiment confirmed that the user’s subjective feeling was consistent with the results of the ergonomic experiment. Second, the direction and distance of the visual drift of the blink action were investigated by increasing the locking range of multiple IOs. The results showed that the main direction of the line-of-sight drift for the blinking action was the upper-right corner. Furthermore, it was experimentally demonstrated that the line-of-sight drifted by a certain distance during blinking and that the system had the highest success rate when the locking range corresponded to a viewing angle of 21.074°. This study provides theoretical support for the application of multi-movement combinations in blink ECHCI, which enhances the user experience of blink triggering.