Fully voluntary eye tracking of an orangutan (Pongo abelii): A case study.
(2011) KOGM20 20111Cognitive Science
- Abstract
- Eye tracking, the direct measurement of eye movements, is a method suitable for studying cognitive processes in detail, and has been used for studies of both human and nonhuman subjects. It provides an opportunity to study human and animals under similar conditions, using the same apparatus, and can therefore be a useful tool in comparative studies. Unfortunately this possibility is seldom utilized, and force and fixation is still the norm for eye tracking studies on nonhuman animals. Presented here is an eye tracking study of one male orangutan (Pongo abelii), where neither force nor fixation was used, as a first step in the development of a fully voluntary eye tracking methodology. The setup involved no training, and no rewards were... (More)
- Eye tracking, the direct measurement of eye movements, is a method suitable for studying cognitive processes in detail, and has been used for studies of both human and nonhuman subjects. It provides an opportunity to study human and animals under similar conditions, using the same apparatus, and can therefore be a useful tool in comparative studies. Unfortunately this possibility is seldom utilized, and force and fixation is still the norm for eye tracking studies on nonhuman animals. Presented here is an eye tracking study of one male orangutan (Pongo abelii), where neither force nor fixation was used, as a first step in the development of a fully voluntary eye tracking methodology. The setup involved no training, and no rewards were provided either during or after the experiment, to eliminate the risk of influencing the subject’s eye movements, through unintentional reinforcement of viewing behaviors. A SMI RED250 eye tracker, sampling in 250 Hz, was used to gather data for the experiment which was based on the Sally-Anne false-belief task. Orangutan eye movements were recorded for three movie clips, resulting in a slight change in the experimental design, and data were collected for 10 human subjects, for the same three movie clips for a comparison. Parameter used in the analysis was the mean dwell time spent on the different AOI’s (Areas of Interest) in the movies. Results indicate that the viewing pattern, for the orangutan and the mean of the human subjects follow a similar pattern, and that attention spent on the different AOI’s was similar for the average of the human subjects and the orangutan. The successful calibration shows that it is possible to conduct fully voluntary eye tracking, not only without force or fixation, but also without prior training or rewarding of the animal subject. The presented study should be seen as a first step towards a functioning experimental setup for eye tracking on orangutans, without the use of force, fixation or training. As the procedures for the human and orangutan subjects were the same, this study show that it is possible to use similar experimental setup, and the same apparatus, for human and animal subjects in eye tracking studies, allowing for a direct comparison between species. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/2154111
- author
- Hirsch, Elin LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- KOGM20 20111
- year
- 2011
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- eye tracking, fully voluntary, orangutan, primate, free viewing, false-belief
- language
- English
- id
- 2154111
- date added to LUP
- 2012-09-24 09:56:30
- date last changed
- 2012-09-24 09:56:30
@misc{2154111,
abstract = {{Eye tracking, the direct measurement of eye movements, is a method suitable for studying cognitive processes in detail, and has been used for studies of both human and nonhuman subjects. It provides an opportunity to study human and animals under similar conditions, using the same apparatus, and can therefore be a useful tool in comparative studies. Unfortunately this possibility is seldom utilized, and force and fixation is still the norm for eye tracking studies on nonhuman animals. Presented here is an eye tracking study of one male orangutan (Pongo abelii), where neither force nor fixation was used, as a first step in the development of a fully voluntary eye tracking methodology. The setup involved no training, and no rewards were provided either during or after the experiment, to eliminate the risk of influencing the subject’s eye movements, through unintentional reinforcement of viewing behaviors. A SMI RED250 eye tracker, sampling in 250 Hz, was used to gather data for the experiment which was based on the Sally-Anne false-belief task. Orangutan eye movements were recorded for three movie clips, resulting in a slight change in the experimental design, and data were collected for 10 human subjects, for the same three movie clips for a comparison. Parameter used in the analysis was the mean dwell time spent on the different AOI’s (Areas of Interest) in the movies. Results indicate that the viewing pattern, for the orangutan and the mean of the human subjects follow a similar pattern, and that attention spent on the different AOI’s was similar for the average of the human subjects and the orangutan. The successful calibration shows that it is possible to conduct fully voluntary eye tracking, not only without force or fixation, but also without prior training or rewarding of the animal subject. The presented study should be seen as a first step towards a functioning experimental setup for eye tracking on orangutans, without the use of force, fixation or training. As the procedures for the human and orangutan subjects were the same, this study show that it is possible to use similar experimental setup, and the same apparatus, for human and animal subjects in eye tracking studies, allowing for a direct comparison between species.}},
author = {{Hirsch, Elin}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Fully voluntary eye tracking of an orangutan (Pongo abelii): A case study.}},
year = {{2011}},
}