Learn more about and get some tips on how to work with AOIs on moving stimuli like movies or animations in Tobii Pro Lab and Tobii Pro Studio.
If you’re studying visual behavior on moving stimuli like movies or animations, the Dynamic Areas of Interest tool provides the same analytical capability as the static AOI tool does for images and other still visuals. Drawing and modifying dynamic AOIs proceeds just like with static AOIs.
There are several important points to keep in mind about the Dynamic AOI tool.
First, let’s define the two different kinds of dynamic stimuli. Linear dynamic stimuli are things like movies or animations that are of a fixed length and are viewed in the same order and with the same timing by all participants. For example, a 30-second-long movie clip would be linear dynamic. Every recording performed with that video will be associated to it, so once you define your moving AOIs on it, the data will be automatically aggregated.
In contrast, nonlinear dynamic stimuli are characterized by individual paths and progressions and can be a different duration for each and every participant. A Tobii Glasses or Pro Glasses 2 recording or web-based tasks are the most common examples of this type of dynamic stimuli.
An additional consideration that can affect your choice of tools in Pro Studio is the whether the target of interest on the linear dynamic stimuli is actually moving in the frame. For example, if a movie stimulus has two stationary looking targets, like stuffed animals on either ends of a table top, one could analyze the gaze path with the scene tool using a frame from the recording as the backdrop for constructing static AOIs or displaying eye tracking visualizations (e.g., gaze plots or heat maps). If, however, the looking target is a person who enters the frame from the left edge of the screen and walks toward the right until he is out of frame, then the Dynamic AOI Tool would be appropriate.
Learn how to create a dynamic AOI in Pro Lab by watching the video above or by following the instructions below. You can also try it in Pro Studio by following the instructions in the next section.
Let's get started! Much of the detail about the use of the tool can be found in chapter 8 of the Pro Studio and Pro Lab User Manuals, Creating and Managing AOIs. Using the Wildlife.wmv 30-second movie that comes with Windows systems, we're going to identify the key steps in applying the Dynamic AOI Tool after you've recorded a few participants.
Tip: While the Dynamic AOI tool can be used to gather gaze data during the visual tracking of moving stimuli, be careful with the judgments made from the resulting data. If the object motion is large scale, smooth, and fast, then most likely the following eye motions will smooth pursuit instead of saccadic in nature. In this case, while total looking time to the target would still be valid, fixational measures would probably not make much interpretive sense.
Tip: For many applications, the AOI size may not change as the target moves or translates across the frame. However, if you dynamically resize an AOI across target motion, remember to keep in mind the selectivity and sensitivity considerations on AOI sizing that are explained in article Digging Into Areas of Interest
Tip: While the Dynamic AOI tool can be used to gather gaze data during the visual tracking of moving stimuli, be careful with the judgments made from the resulting data. If the object motion is large scale, smooth, and fast, then most likely the following eye motions will smooth pursuit instead of saccadic in nature. In this case, while total looking time to the target would still be valid, fixational measures would probably not make much interpretive sense.
Tip: For many applications, the AOI size may not change as the target moves or translates across the frame. However, if you dynamically resize an AOI across target motion, remember to keep in mind the selectivity and sensitivity considerations on AOI sizing that are explained in article Digging Into Areas of Interest
The Dynamic Areas of Interest tool is a powerful function provided in Pro Studio and Pro Lab for the analysis of dynamic stimuli such as movies, animations, and other types of video recordings (e.g. glasses). Using dynamic AOIs, you can bring the full power of eye tracking statistics and automated AOI analysis to your moving stimuli.