Visual Focus Of Attention Research Articles

Association between the teacher–student relationship and teacher visual focus of attention in Grade 1: student task avoidance and gender as moderators

This study investigated associations between quality of the teacher–student relationship (closeness and conflict) and teachers’ (N = 48) visual focus of attention in Grade 1 classrooms in fall and spring, and it explored to what extent students’ (N = 650) gender and task-avoidant behaviour moderated the associations. Results showed first that teacher–student closeness was positively associated with teachers’ visual focus of attention in the fall and spring, whereas teacher–student conflict was positively associated with teachers’ visual focus of attention only in the spring. In addition, the results of multigroup analysis showed that students’ task-avoidant behaviour had a moderating effect on the association between the quality of the teacher–student relationship and teachers’ visual focus of attention in the spring, but gender did not.

Ambient and focal attention during complex problem-solving: preliminary evidence from real-world eye movement data.

Time course analysis of eye movements during free exploration of real-world scenes often reveals an increase in fixation durations together with a decrease in saccade amplitudes, which has been explained within the two visual systems approach, i.e., a transition from ambient to focal. Short fixations and long saccades during early viewing periods are classified as ambient mode of vision, which is concerned with spatial orientation and is related to simple visual properties such as motion, contrast, and location. Longer fixations and shorter saccades during later viewing periods are classified as focal mode of vision, which is concentrated in the foveal projection and is capable of object identification and its semantic categorization. While these findings are mainly obtained in the context of image exploration, the present study endeavors to investigate whether the same pattern of interplay between ambient and focal visual attention is deployed when people work on complex real-world tasks-and if so, when? Based on a re-analysis of existing data that integrates concurrent think aloud and eye tracking protocols, the present study correlated participants' internal thinking models to the parameters of their eye movements when they planned solutions to an open-ended design problem in a real-world setting. We hypothesize that switching between ambient and focal attentional processing is useful when solvers encounter difficulty compelling them to shift their conceptual direction to adjust the solution path. Individuals may prefer different attentional strategies for information-seeking behavior, such as ambient-to-focal or focal-to-ambient. The observed increase in fixation durations and decrease in saccade amplitudes during the periods around shifts in conceptual direction lends support to the postulation of the ambient-to-focal processing; however, focal-to-ambient processing is not evident. Furthermore, our data demonstrate that the beginning of a shift in conceptual direction is observable in eye movement behavior with a significant prolongation of fixation. Our findings add to the conclusions drawn from laboratory settings by providing preliminary evidence for ambient and focal processing characteristics in real-world problem-solving.

Pre-service and in-service teachers' professional vision depending on the video perspective—What teacher gaze and verbal reports can tell us

Teachers are involved in complex teaching situations every day; thus, they must understand what to pay attention to in the classroom, how this information is to be interpreted, and which teaching decisions become necessary as a result. In educational research, these competencies are known as “professional vision.” The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the professional vision of pre-service teachers (PTs) and in-service teachers (ITs) by investigating whether the groups differ in what they notice and how they reason about videotaped classroom events; whether the perspective of the video viewed influences their noticing and reasoning; and to what extent their gaze behavior differs from their verbal statements. Thirty-one PTs and twenty ITs watched a video clip of authentic teaching, shot from different perspectives, and their visual focus of attention was recorded using a remote eye-tracker. Subsequently, participants reported in an interview what they had noticed. The triangulated data show that the gaze behavior of the PTs and ITs did not differ, but the content of their verbal statements did. Depending on the video perspective, participants focused on different subjects, but this difference was not reflected in the verbal data. Thus, the gaze behavior and verbal statements are not consistent. The findings indicate that considering multiple sources and types of data is beneficial to explore professional vision and that further research is needed to understand the concept in depth.

How Learners Use Their Hands for Learning: an Eye-Tracking Study

The present work reviews and summarizes results of tracing studies up to the present and collects different explanations for found effects of pointing and tracing while learning as an effective touch-based action method. Two explanations are focused finally in order to test them in the presented eye-tracking study. The study (N = 90) with a three-group experimental design investigated whether learners benefit from pointing compared to learners using tracing or no-touch-based action method (pointing vs. tracing vs. no touch). The results replicate previous findings demonstrating benefits of using the hands for learning and provide additional support for the hypothesis that fingers support learning by directing attention. This is due to the fact that the learning group using pointing outperformed, especially in comprehension performance, the no-touch learning group and the learning group that used tracing actions. Eye-movement analysis indicated that the pointing group profited from a higher focus of visual attention and more intense cognitive activity. The question of why the tracing group did not show this same benefit is discussed by considering previous studies and the limitations of the present study. It seems as if the present study does not replicate a previous study. However, when reflecting on the different control group design, the present study delivers additional information on how using fingers affects learning. Moreover, new perspectives with explanations from the review are integrated for interpreting and discussing the presented results and opened herewith for further research on touch-based actions in the frame of movement and learning.

Teaching practices mediating the effect of teachers’ psychological stress, and not physiological on their visual focus of attention

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between teachers’ (N = 53) physiological and psychological stress and their visual focus of attention as well as the mediating effect of teaching practices on this association in authentic classroom settings. Data were collected using multimodal methods of measurement: salivary cortisol levels for physiological stress, a self-reported questionnaire for psychological stress, observed teaching practices during one school day, and eye-tracking video recordings of classroom teachers during one lesson for teachers’ visual focus of attention. The results showed that neither teachers’ physiological nor psychological stress was directly related to their visual focus of attention. However, using more child-centered teaching practices compared with teacher-directed ones was related to a higher number of fixations on students, longer total fixation duration, and more individualized distribution of visual focus of attention on students. Teacher’s teaching practices mediated the effect of teachers’ psychological stress on their fixation counts on students and distribution of visual focus of attention. The results suggest that teaching practices are related to the visual attention teachers’ give to students and that teachers’ stress affects their visual focus of attention through teaching practices. The practical implications of this study suggest that teachers should receive training and support to recognize their stress level and its association with their teaching.

Sociable Robot ‘Lometh’: Exploring Interactive Regions of a Product-Promoting Robot in a Supermarket

The robot ‘Lometh’ is an information-presenting robot that naturally interacts with people in a supermarket environment. In recent years, considerable effort has been devoted to the implementation of robotic interfaces to identify effective behaviors of communication robots focusing only on the social and physical factors of the addresser and the hearer. As attention focus and attention target shifting of people differs based on the human visual focus and the spatiality, this study considered four interactive regions, considering the visual focus of attention as well as the interpersonal space between robot and human. The collected primary data revealed that 56% attention shifts occurred in near peripheral field of view regions and 44% attention shifts in far peripheral field of view regions. Using correspondence analysis, we identified that the bodily behaviors of the robot showed the highest success rate in the left near peripheral field of view region. The verbal behaviors of the robot captured human attention best in the right near peripheral field of view region. In this experiment of finding a socially acceptable way to accomplish the attention attracting goals of a communication robot, we observed that the robots’ affective behaviors were successful in shifting human attention towards itself in both left and right far- peripheral field of view regions, so we concluded that for far field of view regions, designing similar interaction interventions can be expected to be successful.

DeepFocus: A visual focus of attention detection framework using deep learning in multi-object scenarios

In recent years, recognizing the visual focus of attention (VFoA) has attracted much attention among computer vision experts due to its various Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) or Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) applications. Although eye gaze is a potential cue to determine someone’s focus of attention (FOA), it is challenging to determine FOA alone when the interacting partners are far away or the camera cannot capture high-resolution images from long-distance. Therefore, the head pose can be used as an approximation to recognize the focus of someone’s attention. This paper proposes a vision-based framework to detect the FOA of humans using nine head poses consisting of four main modules: face detection and facial key-point selection (FDKPSM), head pose classification (HPCM), object localization and classification (OLCM), and focus of attention estimation (FoAEM). The FDKPSM uses the Multi-task Cascaded Neural Network (MTCNN) framework to detect head poses, and the HPCM classifies them into nine classes using the ResNet18. To estimate the FoA, the FoAEM uses a mapping Algorithm (EFoA) which integrates head poses on the focused object. Experimental results show that the proposed model outperformed other deep learning models by achieving the highest accuracy on three datasets: BIWI-M (96.97%), Pointing’04-M (96.04%) and HPoD 9 (98.99%). The visual focus of the attention model gained an accuracy of 94.12% in the multi-object scenario.

Professional vision in the classroom: Teachers’ knowledge-based reasoning explaining their visual focus of attention to students

This study investigated Grade 2 teachers' (N = 50) professional vision through eye-tracking methodology and retrospective think-aloud interviews. The study examined the extent to which teachers' knowledge-based reasoning explains their visual focus of attention to whole class and individual students. We found that teachers' descriptions of students' social relations and emotions associated positively with teachers' visual focus of attention to the whole class. Teachers' descriptions of teacher-related information/elaboration and pedagogy linked negatively with teachers' visual focus of attention to individual students. The findings suggest that teachers' visual focus of attention to students may vary depending on the reasons that guide teachers’ attention.

Teachers' visual focus of attention in relation to students' basic academic skills and teachers' individual support for students: An eye-tracking study

This study investigated how teachers' visual focus of attention is associated with students' basic academic skills and teachers' individual support for students in basic academic skills in authentic classroom settings. Teachers' (N = 46) visual focus of attention in the classroom was measured with mobile eye-tracking, and students' (N = 879) literacy and math skills were tested in Grade 1. The results revealed that teachers' visual focus of attention in terms of fixation counts correlated with students' basic academic skills and teachers' individual support for students in literacy and math. Two case studies showed that teachers' visual focus of attention varied among students with different teacher-reported individual support. It might indicate that the number of students with high teacher individual support in the classroom could influence how evenly teachers are able to distribute their attention. The practical implications of our findings suggest that it is essential to ensure the appropriate distribution of students who require greater individual support so these students can receive more of the teachers' visual focus of attention in the classrooms.

Robust Unsupervised Gaze Calibration Using Conversation and Manipulation Attention Priors

Gaze estimation is a difficult task, even for humans. However, as humans, we are good at understanding a situation and exploiting it to guess the expected visual focus of attention of people, and we usually use this information to retrieve people’s gaze. In this article, we propose to leverage such situation-based expectation about people’s visual focus of attention to collect weakly labeled gaze samples and perform person-specific calibration of gaze estimators in an unsupervised and online way. In this context, our contributions are the following: (i) we show how task contextual attention priors can be used to gather reference gaze samples, which is a cumbersome process otherwise; (ii) we propose a robust estimation framework to exploit these weak labels for the estimation of the calibration model parameters; and (iii) we demonstrate the applicability of this approach on two human-human and human-robot interaction settings, namely conversation and manipulation. Experiments on three datasets validate our approach, providing insights on the priors effectiveness and on the impact of different calibration models, particularly the usefulness of taking head pose into account.

Correlations between gaze fixations to different areas of interest are related to tennis serve return performance in two different expert groups

ABSTRACT Interceptive tasks, such as returning a tennis serve, require efficient use of visual information. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there are differences in the gaze behaviour in two different groups of tennis players. Additionally, analysis between tennis serve returns of different quality have been conducted. Six-hundred and seventy-five returns performed by ten national and five international level tennis players were analysed. Focal visual attention was measured on-court using a mobile eye-movement tracking device. Fixations were mapped to different areas of interest relative to five consecutive service phases. Differences in the duration of visual fixations between different types of tennis returns were examined as well as correlations between most relevant areas of interest. Correlation analysis revealed differences in visual search strategies between both groups of tennis players. The international level group presented with gaze behaviour that indicates increased attention to specific visual information in tactically more successful serve returns. The national level tennis players on the other hand presented less specific gaze behaviour, and probably overall, less efficient attentional control. Additionally, international level tennis players presented return performance-specific gaze behaviour in the follow through-phase, which was not observed for the national level players.

Multitask Learning Method for Detecting the Visual Focus of Attention of Construction Workers

AbstractThe visual focus of attention (VFOA) of construction workers is a critical cue for recognizing entity interactions, which in turn facilitates the interpretation of workers’ intentions, the ...

The Zoom Effect: Exploring the Impact of Video Calling on Appearance Dissatisfaction and Interest in Aesthetic Treatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The popularity of videoconferencing platforms has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, concerns have been expressed regarding the potential for video calls to promote appearance dissatisfaction because individuals are exposed to an image of themselves on camera for extended periods. The aim of the current study was to characterize current video usage behaviors and their relation to appearance dissatisfaction and interest in aesthetic procedures in the general population. An online survey was completed by 335 adults currently living in Australia. Multiple aspects of video usage were assessed, including engagement in video-manipulation techniques to enhance appearance and the focus of visual attention (ie, on self or others) while on video calls. The Dysmorphic Concern Questionnaire was administered to determine if video-use behaviors were associated with greater body image disturbance. Over one-third of participants had identified new appearance concerns while on video. Dysmorphic concern was associated with self-focused attention, greater engagement in video-manipulation behaviors, and increasing appearance concerns due to their time on video calls. Individuals who identified new video-based appearance concerns reported greater interest in obtaining future beauty treatments (eg, waxing) and aesthetic procedures (eg, nonsurgical procedures such as antiwrinkle injections). This is one of first empirical studies to report the potential consequences of video-call usage for increasing appearance dissatisfaction and dysmorphic concern, and to demonstrate a link between the use of video calls and interest in cosmetic procedures.

Detection of Malpractice in E-exams by Head Pose and Gaze Estimation

Examination malpractice is a deliberate wrong doing contrary to official examina-tion rules designed to place a candidate at unfair advantage or disadvantage. The proposed system depicts a new use of technology to identify malpractice in E-Exams which is essential due to growth of online education. The current solu-tions for such a problem either require complete manual labor or have various vulnerabilities that can be exploited by an examinee. The proposed application en-compasses an end-to-end system that assists an examiner/evaluator in deciding whether a student passes an online exam without any probable attempts of mal-practice or cheating in e-exams with the help of visual aids. The system works by categorizing the student’s VFOA (visual focus of attention) data by capturing the head pose estimates and eye gaze estimates using state-of-the-art machine learn-ing techniques. The system only requires the student (test-taker) to have a func-tioning internet connection along with a webcam to transmit the feed. The exam-iner is alerted when the student wavers in his VFOA, from the screen greater than X, a predefined threshold of times. If this threshold X is crossed, the appli-cation will save the data of the person when his VFOA is off the screen and send it to the examiner to be manually checked and marked whether the action per-formed by the student was an attempt at malpractice or just momentary lapse in concentration. The system use a hybrid classifier approach where two different classifiers are used, one when gaze values are being read successfully (which may fail due to various reasons like transmission quality or glare from his specta-cles), the model falls back to the default classifier which only reads the head pose values to classify the attention metric, which is used to map the student’s VFOA to check the likelihood of malpractice. The model has achieved an accuracy of 96.04 percent in classifying the attention metric.

Improving Debt Literacy by 2/3 Through Four Simple Infographics Requires Numeracy and Not Focusing on Negatives of Debt.

Borrowing behavior may be more resistant to formal educational treatments than other financial behaviors. In order to study the process and results of infographics-based debt education, we used eye tracking technology (SMI RED 500 Hz) to monitor the oculomotor behavior of 108 participants (68 females) aged 18 to 60 who were shown 4 infographics. The study used an experimental design with repeated measures and an internal comparison group. We also used scales of debt literacy and a set of information literacy scales: numerical, graph, and linguistic. The results confirm that short-term infographics-based debt education can improve debt literacy significantly. The difference in processing the educational contents that were not known to participants before the educational session suggests that participants with better information literacy make more considerable debt literacy progress. Specifically, we found that numerical literacy is a significant mediator of debt education results, depending on the initial level of debt literacy; this relation is moderated by the focus of visual attention on negatives of debt. We found no significant relationship between debt literacy education results and those of graph and linguistic literacy.

Opportunities for Interaction : Natural Observations of Children's Social Behavior in Five Societies.

We examine the opportunities children have for interacting with others and the extent to which they are the focus of others' visual attention in five societies where extended family communities are the norm. We compiled six video-recorded datasets (two from one society) collected by a team of anthropologists and psychologists conducting long-term research in each society. The six datasets include video observations of children among the Yasawas (Fiji), Tanna (Vanuatu), Tsimane (Bolivia), Huatasani (Peru), and Aka (infants and children 4-12years old; Central African Republic). Each dataset consists of a series of videos of children ranging in age from 2months to 12years in their everyday contexts. We coded 998 videos and identified with whom children had opportunities to interact (male and female adults and children) as well as the number of individuals and the proportion of observed time that children spent with these individuals. We also examined the proportion of time children received direct visual gaze (indicating attention to the child). Our results indicate that children less than 5years old spend the majority of their observed time in the presence of one female adult. This is the case across the five societies. In the three societies from which we have older children (Aka, Yasawa, Peru), we find a clear shift around 5years of age, with children spending the majority of their time with other children. We also coded the presence or absence of a primary caregiver and found that caregivers remained within 2 ft of target children until 7years of age. When they were in the company of a primary caregiver, children older than seven spent the majority of their time more than 2 ft from the caregiver. We found a consistent trend across societies with decreasing focal attention on the child with increasing child age. These findings show (1) remarkable consistency across these societies in children's interaction opportunities and (2) that a developmental approach is needed to fully understand human development because the social context is dynamic across the lifespan. These data can serve as a springboard for future research examining social development in everyday contexts.

A Human-Robot Interaction System Calculating Visual Focus of Human’s Attention Level

Attention is the mental awareness of human on a particular object or a piece of information. The level of attention indicates how intense the focus is on an object or an instance. In this study, several types of human attention level have been observed. After introducing image segmentation and detection technique for facial features, eyeball movement and gaze estimation were measured. Eye movement were assessed using the video data, and a total of 10197 data instances were manually labelled for the attention level. Then Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Recurrent Neural Network-Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) based Deep learning (DL) architectures have been proposed for analysing the data. Next, the trained DL model has been implanted into a robotic system that is capable of detecting various features; ultimately leading to the calculation of visual attention for reading, browsing, and writing purposes. This system is capable of checking the attention level of the participants and also can detect if participants are present or not. Based on a certain level of visual focus of attention (VFOA), this system interacts with the person, generates awareness and establishes verbal or visual communication with that person. The proposed ML techniques have achieved almost 99.24% validation accuracy and 99.43% test accuracy. It is also shown in the comparative study that, since the dataset volumes are limited, ANN is more suitable for attention level calculation than RNN-LSTM. We hope that the implemented robotic structure manifests the real-world implication of the proposed method.

Peer Effects in Random Consideration Sets

We develop a dynamic model of discrete choice that incorporates peer effects into random consideration sets. We characterize the equilibrium behavior and study the empirical content of the model. In our setup, changes in the choices of friends affect the distribution of the consideration sets. We exploit this variation to recover the ranking of preferences, attention mechanisms, and network connections. These nonparametric identification results allow unrestricted heterogeneity across people and do not rely on the variation of either covariates or the set of available options. Our methodology leads to a maximum-likelihood estimator that performs well in simulations. We apply our results to an experimental dataset that has been designed to study the visual focus of attention.

Smart Interrogation System by Detection of Visual Focus of Attention

The paper presents an approach to detect and control the focus of attention of the suspect using his/her eye gaze and head movement direction to build up an automatic interrogation system- specially to detect lies. To this point, we classified interrogation conversation into different criteria and identified the fatal ones. At first, we conducted psychological experiments on the sampled population to detect the different parameters connected with various symptoms when the suspect tells lies and build our knowledgebase with the results. This knowledgebase helps the system to make strategic decisions and to optimize accuracy. A monitoring camera captures continuous interrogation and feeds the frames to our proposed system. 3D head tracker is used to track the head from image and Active Shape Model (ASM) is utilized to localize face points. Vector Field of Image Gradient (VFIG) is calculated to track the eyeball and its rotation within the eye area. Random eye and head movement, change of eyebrow at the critical level of questionnaire provide us the possibility of detecting lies. Finally, experiments are conducted in a controlled environment to validate our psychological findings.

More bodily motor action, less visual attention: How supermarket stimuli and consumer-related factors influence gaze behavior

This research examines the relationship between bodily motor actions and the focus of visual attention when consumers are selecting retail products. Based on a quasi-experimental study that was conducted to explore the level of visual attention, collected through the eye-tracking system, it can be seen that the amount of information captured by gaze behavior is conditioned by bodily movement at the front of a shelf. The viewpoint emerging from this paper is that cognitive processes stimulated by vision are deeply rooted in the body's interactions in the retail environment and may also be influenced by stimuli associated with the particular supermarket, as well as by factors relating to individual consumers.