Introducing Point-of-Interest as an alternative to Area-of-Interest for fixation duration analysis

Many eye-tracking data analyses rely on the Area-of-Interest (AOI) methodology, which utilizes AOIs to analyze metrics such as fixations. However, AOI-based methods have some inherent limitations including variability and subjectivity in shape, size, and location of AOIs. In this article, we propose an alternative approach to the traditional AOI dwell time analysis: Weighted Sum Durations (WSD). This approach decreases the subjectivity of AOI definitions by using Points-of-Interest (POI) while maintaining interpretability. In WSD, the durations of fixations toward each POI is weighted by the distance from the POI and summed together to generate a metric comparable to AOI dwell time. To validate WSD, we reanalyzed data from a previously published eye-tracking study (n = 90). The re-analysis replicated the original findings that people gaze less towards faces and more toward points of contact when viewing violent social interactions.