Eye movements during judgements of relative distance and size from images of indoor spaces

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Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi

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Date

2017-06-05

Department

Major/Subject

Human Neuroscience and Technology

Mcode

SCI3061

Degree programme

Master’s Programme in Life Science Technologies

Language

en

Pages

55

Series

Abstract

Eye movements provide insight on how visual system extracts specific information from the environment to support cognitive and behavioural processes. Despite the vast amount of research on eye movement control mechanisms, the guidance of eye movements during depth judgements appears to be an underrepresented area in eye-gaze behaviour research. In the present thesis, a pilot study was conducted exploring eye-gaze control in depth perception. Twenty-four participants made relative size and distance judgements while viewing pairs of colour photographs of natural indoor scenes. As a control condition, the participants were also asked to freely view the same images. All measurements were made after thorough investigation of visual functions, including stereoacuity. The results revealed differences in the quantitative measures of the eye movements between the free viewing of the images and the depth estimation tasks, but no difference between the relative-size estimation and the relative-distance estimation tasks. The amplitude of the preceding saccade showed an effect on fixation duration for all tasks. Fixation density distribution function demonstrated effect of the viewing task on the selection of the scene regions, as well as a tendency to choose similar areas for early fixations since image onset, with the type of the viewing task having more influence when time from the image onset increased. Depth map available for displayed stimuli showed tendency to spend more time fixating more distant regions in the scene for both tasks in comparison to free inspection. To support a pilot study, present thesis also discusses depth perception research using static images, and summarizes main frameworks describing eye movement control. Obtained results suggest feasibility of the use of depth maps, depth cue theory and images of indoor spaces for eye-gaze allocation predictions, as well as possible use of stereoacuity as a predictor for individual fixation durations.

Description

Supervisor

Parkkonen, Lauri

Thesis advisor

Henriksson, Linda

Keywords

depth perception, depth cues, eye movements, eye tracking, complex visual scenes, fixation density function

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Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201706135450

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[dipl] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI