Investigating Eye-Tracking in 3rd Party Off-the-Shelve Software

Abstract

Eye-tracking and its uses to assess visual attention in head-mounted displays opens many possibilities for virtual reality experiences. Eye-tracking in virtual reality can reveal what is behind an individual’s subconscious reaction and behavior when interacting with environments Several Virtual Reality headsets have integrated eye-tracking capabilities. In order to use the eye-tracking feature, it usually is necessary to implement specific SDKs into the Virtual Reality software. The focus of this paper is to present an approach to use such systems to investigate eye-tracking data in third party off-the-shelve Virtual Reality software without integration of specific SDKs. Also investigated is the measurement and forecasting of user performance based on the eye-tracking data. A randomized controlled study was conducted with 20 participants. They used the Varjo VR-2 head-mounted display with integrated eye-tracking capabilities in a biomedical teaching application. The method proved to be successful. A link was found between visual attention and educational outcomes in biomedical training with a positive and strong correlation.