Attention to repeated images on the World-Wide Web: another look at scanpath theory.

Full Abstract

The scanpath theory of visual perception was tested using Web pages as visual stimuli. Scanpaths are repetitive sequences of fixations and saccades that occur upon reexposure to a visual stimulus. Since Internet users are exposed to repeated visual displays, the Web provides ideal stimuli to test this theory. Eye movement data were recorded for subjects' repeated viewings of three Web pages over three sessions. Resemblance of eye path sequences was measured with a string-edit method; multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis were used to group sequences. Support was found for the scanpath theory; some clusters included pairs of sequences from the same subject. A repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a statistically significant main effect for stimulus type, with a text-intensive news story page generating more similar sequences than a graphic-intensive advertising page. There was a statistically significant main effect for cross-viewing comparisons, reflecting a linear trend in which eye paths for the same subject became more alike over time.

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Author information

Author/s: Josephson, Sheree (S); Holmes, Michael E (ME);

Affiliation: Communication Department, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah 84408-1605, USA. sjosephson(-atsign-)weber.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc (Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Nov; vol 34 (issue 4) : pp 539-48

Dates: Created 2003/02/04; Completed 2003/03/03; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12564558, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Attention - physiology
Female
Fixation, Ocular - physiology
Humans
Internet

Internet
Male
Models, Statistical
Periodicity
Saccades - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology

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