OSIEshort: A small stimulus set can reliably estimate individual differences in semantic salience

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Visual Perception

Background:

• Consistent individual differences in fixation tendencies during complex scene viewing have been previously observed.
• Understanding these differences is crucial for various fields, including human-computer interaction and visual cognition research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate previously identified individual differences in fixation tendencies.
• To determine if these differences can be reliably estimated using a shorter eye-tracking test.
• To identify the optimal number of images and viewing duration for efficient estimation.

Main Methods:

• 103 participants completed two eye-tracking sessions.
• The first session replicated a prior study on fixation differences.
• The second session utilized a smaller, optimized image set to assess efficiency.

Main Results:

• Replication confirmed large and consistent individual differences across five semantic dimensions.
• Individual differences were reliably estimated using 40-100 images in the shorter test.
• Only the initial 2 seconds of viewing duration proved informative for estimating these differences.

Conclusions:

• Reliable individual differences in semantic salience exist and are stable.
• A brief eye-tracking test (under 2 minutes) can effectively estimate these individual differences.
• These findings pave the way for more efficient assessment of visual attention patterns.