Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 14, 2025
Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
Published on: November 14, 2018
The Effects of Calibration Target, Screen Location, and Movement Type on Infant Eye-Tracking Data Quality
Karola Schlegelmilch1, Annie E Wertz1
1Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Max Planck Research Group Naturalistic Social Cognition.
Insights
Infant eye-tracking data quality can be improved by using calibration targets with high contrast or complexity. Alternating precise calibration targets also reduces fussiness, enhancing measurement accuracy for infant research.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Developmental Psychology
- Biomedical Engineering
Background:
- Infant eye-tracking studies are crucial for understanding visual development but are often limited by participant fussiness and movement.
- Calibration stimulus repetition and spontaneous body movements during testing can compromise the quality of eye-tracking measurements.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically investigate how calibration stimulus properties and body movements affect eye-tracking data quality in infants and adults.
- To identify optimal calibration strategies and understand movement-related artifacts in eye-tracking.
Main Methods:
- Comparison of looking time and gaze point dispersion using stimuli similar to common calibration animations on the EyeLink 1000 Plus system.
- Adult participants performed controlled body movements mimicking infant movements during gaze recording.
Main Results:
- Infant stimulus preference did not correlate with data quality; high-contrast or complex targets yielded better accuracy.
- Adult movement tasks showed that movement type and target location differentially impacted gaze measures.
- Heterogeneous effects of movement on gaze measures highlight the need for careful experimental design.
Conclusions:
- Calibration target selection (high contrast/complexity) and alternating precise targets can improve infant eye-tracking data quality.
- Understanding the impact of movement artifacts is essential for robust infant eye-tracking experimental design and data interpretation.
Abstract:
During infant eye-tracking, fussiness caused by the repetition of calibration stimuli and body movements during testing are frequent constraints on measurement quality. Here, we systematically investigated these constraints with infants and adults using EyeLink 1000 Plus. We compared looking time and dispersion of gaze points elicited by stimuli resembling commonly used calibration animations. The adult group additionally performed body movements during gaze recording that were equivalent to movements infants spontaneously produce during testing. In our results, infants' preference for a particular calibration target did not predict data quality elicited by that stimulus, but targets exhibiting the strongest contrasts in their center or targets with globally distributed complexity resulted in the highest accuracy. Our gaze measures from the adult movement tasks were differentially affected by the type of movement as well as the location where the target appeared on the screen. These heterogeneous effects of movement on measures should be taken into account when planning infant eye-tracking experiments. Additionally, to improve data quality, infants' tolerance for repeated calibrations can be facilitated by alternating between precise calibration targets.
