PubMed Health⌕ Search

PubMed · 16171198

ProtoMatch: a tool for analyzing high-density, sequential eye gaze and cursor protocols.

Abstract

ProtoMatch is a software tool for integrating and analyzing fixed-location and movement eye gaze and cursor data. It provides a comprehensive collection of protocol analysis tools that support sequential data analyses for eye fixations and scanpaths as well as for cursor "fixations" (dwells at one location) and "cursorpaths" (movements between locations). ProtoMatch is modularized software that integrates both eye gaze and cursor protocols into a unified stream of data and provides an assortment of filters and analyses. ProtoMatch subsumes basic analyses (i.e., fixation duration, number of fixations, etc.) and introduces a method of objectively computing the similarity between scanpaths or cursorpaths using sequence alignment. The combination of filters, basic analyses, and sequence alignment in ProtoMatch provides researchers with a versatile system for performing both confirmatory and exploratory sequential data analyses (Sanderson & Fisher, 1994).

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Christopher W Myers, Michael J Schoelles. 2005. ProtoMatch: a tool for analyzing high-density, sequential eye gaze and cursor protocols.. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03192693

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

The integration of figurative language and static depictions: an eye movement study of fictive motion.

Do we view the world differently if it is described to us in figurative rather than literal terms? An answer to this question would reveal something about both the conceptual representation of figurative language and the scope of top-down influences on scene perception. Previous work has shown that participants will look longer at a path region of a picture when it is described with a type of figurative language called fictive motion (The road goes through the desert) rather than without (The road is in the desert). The current experiment provided evidence that such fictive motion descriptions affect eye movements by evoking mental representations of motion. If participants heard contextual information that would hinder actual motion, it influenced how they viewed a picture when it was described with fictive motion. Inspection times and eye movements scanning along the path increased during fictive motion descriptions when the terrain was first described as difficult (The desert is hilly) as compared to easy (The desert is flat); there were no such effects for descriptions without fictive motion. It is argued that fictive motion evokes a mental simulation of motion that is immediately integrated with visual processing, and hence figurative language can have a distinct effect on perception.

Eye Movements↗

Flick-induced flips in perception.

Microsaccades are miniature eye movements produced involuntarily during visual fixation of stationary objects. Since their first description more than 40 years ago, the role of microsaccades in vision has been controversial. In this issue, Martinez-Conde and colleagues present a solution to the long-standing research problem connecting this basic oculomotor function to visual perception, by showing that microsaccades may control peripheral vision during visual fixation by inducing flips in bistable peripheral percepts in head-unrestrained viewing. Their study provides new insight into the functional connectivity between oculomotor function and visual perception.

Eye Movements↗

Role of visual context and oculomotor conditions in pointing accuracy.

Localizing a target in the extrapersonal space may rely on two types of spatial coordinate systems: egocentric or exocentric. Two experiments investigated the role of these systems in the accuracy of goal-directed movements. The accuracy of pointing movements performed without visual feedback of the hand was measured in two conditions of target presentation (darkness or within a visually structured background), and in two conditions of eye-hand coordination (eye fixed on a fixation point, or with a foveation saccade). The results showed (1) that pointing accuracy increased in the presence of a visual background, and (2) enhancement of this beneficial effect by a steady retinal image of target and background, that is without a foveation saccade. An object that has to be reached in the prehension space can be localized in two ways: (1) in relation to the body (egocentric), induced by the absence of a structured visual environment, (2) in relation to the external space (exocentric), favored by the presence of a visually structured background. We investigated the importance of the localizing mode in the accuracy of reaching movements, and how the two modes can be optimized. We found better reaching accuracy with exocentric than with egocentric localization, particularly when the retinal image of the goal and its environment was stabilized in the absence of eye movements.

Eye Movements↗