A stand camera for line-of-sight recording

The paper describes a method that has been extensively used to superpose a spot marking the position of the line-of-sight on photographs of stimulus scenes. The spot, reflected from the cornea, determines the line-of-sight with an accuracy of plus or minus 1°. Some of the useful measurements that can be made of fixation patterns are described. Two basic themes have guided the experimental applications: the relation between attention and the line of sight, and the association between peripheral and central vision. Comparisons among age groups have also demonstrated the erratic and piecemeal nature of children’s visual input. Comparisons among scenes have shown that certain areas of a picture, judged highly informative, receive most of the visual fixations. More than 20 other laboratories have also used the camera in a wide range of research on perception, cognition, and psycholinguistics.