Visual and Pupillary Behavior in Neonatal Pain Assessment using Eye-Tracking

Abstract

This paper introduces the application of novel eyetracking metrics to assess visual attention and cognitive load in neonatal pain assessment. Our goal is to evaluate pediatrician experts, non-experts, and parents using the relative Explore- Exploit Ratio, along with the Task-Evoked Pupillary Response, while analyzing the frontal faces of distinct newborns before and after painful procedures. All the experiments were based on a benchmark image dataset considering clinically relevant areas of interest. The Tobii TX300 system was used to record the eye-tracking data in a closed room with controlled lighting. Our results disclose that the visual attention described by the traditional metrics does not correspond directly to the respective fixation patterns and pupillary changes quantified for all the sample groups of participants investigated, highlighting statistically significant differences in the visual behavior between participants with or without clinical experience only when using the novel metrics proposed instead.