Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to find out what the eyes focus on when determining which way is north. Projects that required identifying north were assigned, then the subjects' eye movements were followed with an eye movement tracker, and their tracks and the amount of time they paused at each interval were determined. Results showed that the reaction time became faster as the number of directions the arrow pointed toward decreased for the four types of compass roses. Furthermore, for each compass rose, the subjects' reaction time shortened where the directional point the letter "N" (for north) was present. As for eye movement, the eyes tended to move toward the edges of the compass, on letters and at intersecting points. The subjects' eyes focused on "N" the longest. With regards to instructions by letter, those with just an "N" on the compass rose elicited a narrower range of movement in the eyes than for those indicating the four cardinal directions, north, east, south and west. Without a letter designation, the eye movement range tended to be more scattered.
