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Our vision isn’t as good as we think it is. Whether you have 20/20 vision or need a bit of help, the amount of visual information we can absorb with our eyes is limited – and our brains fill in the missing parts.
HOW DO I LOOK? The Centre for Perception and Cognition runs an eye tracking laboratory with four state-of-theart Eyelink 1000 eye trackers in its laboratories.
Pioneering eye tracking research at Southampton is exploiting our eyes’ limitations to offer new, more effective methods for visual search tasks such as airport baggage screening, crime scene searches, explosives detection in war zones and spotting suspicious behaviour in crowded public spaces.
Psychology researchers from the University’s Eye Movement Research Unit, who are leading the research, have worked with Government departments, security professionals and the military to better understand how people look for things. Dr Hayward Godwin, Associate Professor in Psychology and member of the Centre for Perception and Cognition (CPC), is an expert in the field. He said: “Our vision is not as good as we think it is. We have to really look at things to work out what they are. Our eyes give us the impression that everything is nice and clear, but really it is our brains filling in the details. Eye tracking exploits this. If you watch what someone’s eyes are doing, you can work out what they are interested in and what information they are trying extract from the world around them.” The CPC runs an eye tracking laboratory with four state-of-the-art Eyelink 1000 eye trackers in its laboratories. The eye trackers can be taken to different venues, in the customised mobile research unit, for data collection.
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The team has conducted research funded by the Government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Department for Transport and the Home Office – all to better understand how we search.
Suspicious minds Countering modern-day terrorism by spotting suspicious behaviour in crowded venues was the focus of a project funded by the Home Office’s Defence and Security Accelerator. Hayward explained: “In this project, instead of having more security staff and equipment to seek out threats, it’s about trying to train members of the public to be good at spotting suspicious behaviour. An example is the British Transport Police’s campaign, See it. Say it. Sorted.” The CPC team compiled training materials, audio announcements and videos about spotting suspicious behaviour and threats in public places. They also ran experiments and focus groups using the new training materials. The findings were supported by eye movement examinations of people searching for threats in crowded public spaces. Safe as houses How would you go about searching a house for evidence of a bank robbery? Former CPC PhD student Dr Charlotte Riggs conducted an
