The Application of Gaze Heat Maps in Impression Evaluation

- Case Study of Chinese College Students Evaluating Historical Souvenir Stores in Japan -

Abstract

Eye trackers have gradually been applied in research including in the Kansei Engineering field. Furthermore the semantic differential (SD) method can obtain users’ Kansei from different aspects through the semantics of different words. As for facade, because it contains too many components, the components’ effect on Kansei is difficult to analyze using only evaluation scores. In this paper, an eye tracker was utilized in the facade evaluation process to analyze whether evaluation words would have an effect on gaze. Subjects were divided into four groups, three of which were given different evaluation words, and the fourth group was not given any evaluation word. The differences in heat maps were quantified and compared. While using evaluation words in the Kansei evaluation experience, the heat maps were more similar than those without using any evaluation word, indicating that the logic of the evaluation task, the Kansei evaluation words, and individual preference all had an effect on gaze position.