Gazer: A New Tool for Web-based Eye Tracking
Amy vanWell, Jim Tanaka · 2022
The evolution of personal laptop cameras and eye-tracking software have created an opportunity to explore new possibilities in web-based science. In this paper, we have described our ‘Gazer’ program that allows researchers to record eye tracking experiments in the browser. In the current study, we compared the temporal and spatial performance of online web-based Gazer program to the laboratory-based Eyelink 1000 in an attentional exogenous cueing task. In each trial, the participant’s task was to fixate on a centered fixation cross for 500ms until the onset of a target red dot. Participants were instructed to re-orient their gaze to the target red dot and maintain the gaze position until the end of the trial. The results showed that both the Gazer and Eyelink system recorded the eye movement towards the target with a comparable spatial and temporal resolution. For both systems, participants reliably shifted their gaze towards the target within 300 milliseconds of target onset. Our results demonstrate the Gazer program’s potential as a powerful new tool for conducting remote eye-tracking research.