Quantifying the Predictability of Visual Scanpaths Using Active Information Storage

Entropy-based measures are an important tool for studying human gaze behavior under various conditions. In particular, gaze transition entropy (GTE) is a popular method to quantify the predictability of a visual scanpath as the entropy of transitions between fixations and has been shown to correlate with changes in task demand or changes in observer state. Measuring scanpath predictability is thus a promising approach to identifying viewers’ cognitive states in behavioral experiments or gaze-based applications. However, GTE does not account for temporal dependencies beyond two consecutive fixations and may thus underestimate the actual predictability of the current fixation given past gaze behavior. Instead, we propose to quantify scanpath predictability by estimating the active information storage (AIS), which can account for dependencies spanning multiple fixations. AIS is calculated as the mutual information between a processes’ multivariate past state and its next value. It is thus able to measure how much information a sequence of past fixations provides about the next fixation, hence covering a longer temporal horizon. Applying the proposed approach, we were able to distinguish between induced observer states based on estimated AIS, providing first evidence that AIS may be used in the inference of user states to improve human–machine interaction.

Identifying Expert and Novice Visual Scanpath Patterns and Their Relationship to Assessing Learning-Relevant Student Characteristics

The paper addresses cognitive processes during a teacher's professional task of assessing learning-relevant student characteristics. We explore how eye-movement patterns (scanpaths) differ across expert and novice teachers during an assessment situation. In an eye-tracking experiment, participants watched an authentic video of a classroom lesson and were subsequently asked to assess five different students. Instead of using typically reported averaged gaze data (e.g., number of fixations), we used gaze patterns as an indicator for visual behavior. We extracted scanpath patterns, compared them qualitatively (common sub-pattern) and quantitatively (scanpath entropy) between experts and novices, and related teachers' visual behavior to their assessment competence. Results show that teachers' scanpaths were idiosyncratic and more similar to teachers of the same expertise group. Moreover, experts monitored all target students more regularly and made recurring scans to re-adjust their assessment. Lastly, this behavior was quantified using Shannon's entropy score. Results indicate that experts' scanpaths were more complex, involved more frequent revisits of all students, and that experts transferred their attention between all students with equal probability. Experts' visual behavior was also statistically related to higher judgment accuracy.

M135. DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL SCANPATH PATTERN ANALYSIS BASED ON FACIAL EMOTION PERCEPTION ENHANCEMENT TRAINING PROGRAM IN SCHIZOPHRENIA PATIENTS

Background Facial expression is an important non-verbal way of expressing the person’s emotional state. If the process of perceiving facial features is impaired, the ability to recognize the emotional state of others is degraded, which may make it difficult to maintain interpersonal and social communications. Many studies have reported on the association between deficit of facial emotion perception (FEP) and the social functioning in schizophrenia. Therefore, we developed visual scanpath pattern analysis based FEP enhancement training program in schizophrenia. Methods We enrolled patients visited and admitted Gongju National Hospital and those lived in shared housing facilities for rehabilitation from Sep 2018 to May 2019. 128 patients attended to FEP training program as open, blind and randomized-controlled cross-over design. Both FEP training and mock programs were provided twice a week for a month treatment period with a 4-week washout period between treatment periods. Primary outcome was results of heatmaps based on visual scanpath patterns. Results Among 128 patients, 121 completed the study and 7 was dropped out. In FEP training group, their visual scanpath pattern somewhat closer to normal than mock group. When they had an efforts to perceive the emotion of face pictures, FEP training group tended to scan the face pictures more broadly including eye rims, middle of forehead and sided of the mouth in addition to eyes, nose and mouth whereas mock group tended to gaze eyes, nose and mouth intensively. Discussion This FEP training program may improve the ability to integrate facial expression cues through visual scanpath pattern changes in schizophrenia patients. Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (Grant number NRF-2016R1E1A2A01953732 & 2018R1E1A2A02059043).

Does visual scanpath reflect self-focused and other-focused attention, a maintenance factor of social anxiety?

<p>Social anxiety disorder has two critical attentional processes, self-focused attention (SFA) and other-focused attention (OFA). These biases are caused by two psychological aspects: Strategies known as positive metacognitive beliefs and negative metacognitive beliefs. A method in which the occurrence of OFA is predicted by eye movement has been proposed. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between SFA and changes of eye movement. The relationship between the degree of SFA and OFA during speech and eye movements was investigated in this study, based on the psychosomatic relationship in which eye movements reflect psychological changes. </p><p></p>

Does visual scanpath reflect self-focused and other-focused attention, a maintenance factor of social anxiety?

<p>Social anxiety disorder has two critical attentional processes, self-focused attention (SFA) and other-focused attention (OFA). These biases are caused by two psychological aspects: Strategies known as positive metacognitive beliefs and negative metacognitive beliefs. A method in which the occurrence of OFA is predicted by eye movement has been proposed. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between SFA and changes of eye movement. The relationship between the degree of SFA and OFA during speech and eye movements was investigated in this study, based on the psychosomatic relationship in which eye movements reflect psychological changes. </p><p></p>

Does visual scanpath reflect self-focused and other-focused attention, a maintenance factor of social anxiety?

<p>Social anxiety disorder has two critical attentional processes, self-focused attention (SFA) and other-focused attention (OFA). These biases are caused by two psychological aspects: Strategies known as positive metacognitive beliefs and negative metacognitive beliefs. A method in which the occurrence of OFA is predicted by eye movement has been proposed. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between SFA and changes of eye movement. We investigated the relationship between the degree of SFA and OFA during speech and eye movements based on psychogenic correlation that psychological changes reflect eye movements in this study.<b></b></p><p></p>