Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Measuring Sensitivity to Viewpoint Change with and without Stereoscopic Cues
Published on: December 4, 2013
Points of view: where do we look when we watch TV?
1Carroll School of Management, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. brasels@bc.edu
Abstract:
How is our gaze dispersed across the screen when watching television? An exploratory eyetracker study with a custom-designed show indicated a very strong center-of-screen bias with gaze points following a roughly normal distribution peaked near screen center. Examining the show across time revealed that people were rarely all looking at the same location, and the amount of gaze dispersion within frames was highly variable. Different forms of programming yielded different levels of dispersion: static network 'bumpers' created the tightest visual groupings, and gaze dispersion for frames with show content was less than the dispersion for commercials. Advertising frames with brand logos generated higher dispersion than the non-branded advertisement portions, and repeated advertisements generated higher dispersion than their first-run counterparts.
Related Concept Videos
Actor-Observer Effect
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Depth Perception and Spatial Vision
Channels of Non-Verbal Communication
Cable: Problem Solving
Naturalistic Observations

