Weighted Sum Duration: A Point-of-Interest Based Approach for Fixation Duration Analysis in Eye-tracking Data

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 the shape, size, and location of AOIs. This thesis proposes 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 are weighted by the distance from the POI and summed together to generate a metric comparable to AOI dwell time. To validate WSD, I 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.