eye tracking

SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) of Germany has launched its latest gaze and eye tracking system called the RED500. Eye tracking is a key research technique for many types of scientific, marketing, and design studies. Billed as the world’s first high-performance and high-speed remote eye tracker, the RED500 features a “scientific grade” 500 Hz sampling rate, binocular tracking, and a portable all-in-one design.

Gaze and eye tracking studies measure and plot the movement of the human eye. In the neuroscience and psychological fields, eye tracking can be used to analyze how we process visual information and to help detect neuro-degenerative diseases or comprehension disorders such as dyslexia. Marketers and designers can use eye tracking to pre-test designs and actually measure what their audience sees and where they focus. Eye tracking has also been used in sports and professional training to improve performance, and there are even security applications.

Eye tracking follows the subjects gaze as they perform a visual task such as reading or interacting with a web site. Far from being a smooth path, a human’s gaze is made up of many quick, minute eye movements called saccades. Saccades are measured in degrees of movement per second, and can reach speeds of up to 1000 degrees per second. The RED500’s 500 Hz sampling rate allows it to capture more saccades, and provide a high resolution measurement of eye movement.