Abstract
((Purpose)) Because our visual field is limited, we need to move our head and body to obtain visual information from wide areas. Although the cooperation between eye and head movements has been reported, there is only limited knowledge of how to move cooperatively. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between eye movements and head orientation while searching for a target in a 360° visual display. ((Experiment))We measured participants’ eye movements, head directions, and chest directions while they were searching for a target. Targets were presented on a 360° visual display; six displays surrounding the participant. The task was to search for a letter "T" (target) among 47 "L" shaped symbols (distractors) distributed over the six displays. The participant naturally moved his head, eyes, and body to search for the target and then pressed a button when he found the target. In order to explore the relationship between eye position and head orientation, we analyzed the distribution of eye position as a function of the head orientation relative to the chest direction. ((Results))The results showed clear correlation between eye position and head orientation. When the head pointed to the left or right (relative to the chest), the peak distribution of eye position was also to the left or right (relative to the head). The results also showed that when the head is centered (±5° to the chest), the eye position is also centered in the head. ((Discussion)) The distribution function of eye position is clearly related to head orientation. This finding suggests that gaze locations can be predicted by measuring head movements if we have additional information of visual scenes such as their saliency map.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2012