Following numerous requests connected with the previous post on the subject of how the eyes perceive a picture, I decided to try to tell how one can carry out a modelling of eye-tracking technology. Along the way there emerged a fairly large text about vision and the perception of flat images, which I have divided into six parts.
Part one. An excursion into the eye
To understand how a person perceives an image, one has to begin with the organ of vision — the eye. An important point for what follows, besides the anatomical structure of the eye, is the limitations of the eye’s resolving power, which I shall describe here. If all of this is already familiar to you, you may simply skim the highlighted passages and go straight on to the second part.
Part two. Perception
This post is about certain peculiarities of human perception that take place still at the level of the retina of the eye (before the picture is analysed in the brain). The points directly connected with the theme of modelling are set in bold.
Part three. Geometry of vision
This part is important for understanding the principles of modelling eye tracking, and along the way it tells a few interesting things about the angle and the sharpness of vision.
Part four. Eye tracking
This part tells what eye tracking actually is, and what psychological and biological mechanisms lie behind that definition.
Part five. How to catch the gaze
Continuing the account begun in the fourth part about saccades and their modelling, it is necessary to speak of such phenomena as traps for the gaze and zones of indistinguishability. It also tells a little about how to attract attention or, conversely, to draw it away from certain regions of a picture.
Part six. Modelling eye tracking
An account directly of the principles and algorithms of modelling eye tracking.