Zoom Brown Bag: Noise in the Machine: Challenges and Potential Solutions for Wearable Eye Tracking, particularly in Individuals with Eccentric Fixation

Abstract:Developments in wearable eye tracking devices make them an attractive solution for studies of eye movements during naturalistic head/body motion. However, before these "systems" potential can be fully realized, a thorough assessment of potential sources of error is needed. First, I will discuss three possible sources of error for the Pupil Core eye-tracking goggles: camera motion during head/body motion, choice of calibration marker configuration, and eye movement estimation. Focusing on a clinical population, loss of the central retina, including the fovea, can lead to a loss of visual acuity and oculomotor deficits and thus have profound effects on day-to-day tasks. Recent advances in head-mounted, 3D eye tracking have allowed researchers to extend studies in this population to a broader set of daily tasks and more naturalistic behaviors and settings. However, decreases in fixational stability, multiple fixational loci, and their uncertain role as oculomotor references, as well as eccentric fixation all provide additional challenges for calibration and collection of eye movement data. I will show decreases in calibration accuracy relative to fixation eccentricity and discuss a robotic calibration and validation tool we are developing in the lab that may allow for future developments of calibration and tracking algorithms designed with this population in mind. Natela Shanidze | Smith-Kettlewell (ski.org) Improving Zoom accessibility for people with hearing impairments People with hearing impairments often use lipreading and speechreading to improve speech comprehension. This approach is helpful but only works if the speaker’s face and mouth are clearly visible. For the benefit of people with hearing impairments on Zoom calls, please enable your device’s camera whenever you are speaking on Zoom, and face the camera while you speak. (Feel free to disable your camera when you aren’t speaking.)