CG&A with Eye Tracking for Cognitive Behavior Analysis and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Eye tracking is a technique used to track and measure the movement of human eyes and their gaze. Eye tracking technology has broad spectrum of uses ranging from product usability study through evaluating design effectiveness of mission critical defense systems. Currently eye tracking technology is used in the field of psychology to study and diagnose developmental psychology issues like Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Though used in the study of cognitive patterns in media and consumer psychology, the technology is not yet explored enough for therapeutic use to adults, use in - mental health screenings, psychotherapy, and cognitive behavior modifications. This paper fuses concepts of computer graphics, animation, eye tracking with those of human psychological conditions, to make eye tracking technology not just as a diagnostic instrument but also as a therapeutic means for treating/alleviating depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and autism. Eye tracking mechanisms usually have hardware front-end like large TFT monitors for playing some visual media(stimuli), devices emitting infra-red or near infra-red non-collimated light, sensors capturing corneal reflection, strategically placed, software in the back-end for - processing data from sensors and back tracing the points of gaze, eye movements, using corneal reflection geometry. Computer Graphics and Animation has a rich use in visual media displayed by eye tracking systems and in visual data representations resulting from eye tracking analysis. Since eye tracking, gets us unobtrusively close to seeing what others see, many objective inferences from viewer responses could be gathered. Such data is of great significance to cognitive behavior analysis and psychoanalysis. Eye tracking mediums conventionally deliver pre-defined videos targeted for specific expected set of user responses. This paper attempts exploring the existence and design possibilities of delivering psychologically interactive CG&A media, which change in real-time according to the psychometrics, psychology inferred from viewer gazing and evaluations tailored to the associated contexts. The paper would outline a high level design of an eye tracking system based on its research outcomes, for the purpose of psychometrics, cognitive behavioral analysis and psychotherapy, propose a minimal configuration of hardware and software for academic use, research and practical field applications.