Eyes for Information, Communication, and Understanding

Humans interact with each other in various ways. One important communication channel which works even without language is gaze contact. Gazing is used for orienting, for action control, and for communication. In addition, we infer the mental states of others through their gaze; even trust emerges through gaze contact. The understanding of what we read out of the gaze can be of help also when designing technical systems.
Understanding how the gaze is controlled, which characteristics of the environment are used when as gaze targets, which gaze parameters (in addition to the classically observed fixations) convey which information, is a promising way to advance human-machine-interaction. Eye tracking thus allows for Information, Communication, and Understanding (Eyes4ICU) among humans and technical systems, in a remote and language-independent manner. Gazing consists always of a subject looking at certain objects. Consequently, we approach the topic from two sides; on the one hand, we investigate the objects in the environment and study conditions which make regions in the environment become gaze targets (WP1: Gazing at the world), and on the other hand, we investigate the observer and study characteristics of eye movements which yield information about the person looking at them (WP2: Looking at the viewer). In both work packages, we investigate research questions from an empirical viewpoint, from a modelling perspective, and from an application perspective. The common link between all projects will be derived by computational modelling: The Eyes4ICU consortium will investigate theoretically sound and effective computational models able to describe and predict user behaviors and characteristics.
This approach of pursuing the topic within these two work packages from three different perspectives each assures interdisciplinary collaborations in EYES4ICU. This approach reflects the highly interdisciplinary nature of eye tracking research and application and also ensures that doctoral students are highly trained and competitive in a future job market.