The Effect of Chromatic Information on Gaze Patterns in Visual Search of Metro Map

Abstract

Experts and amateurs can exhibit different gaze patterns on visual search with a domain specific way. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the modification of gaze patterns is observed without extensive training if some factors of the visual images are manipulated. In this study, participants searched the target on the metro map seen for the first time and their gaze patterns were measured by an eye-tracking device. We found that the gaze patterns were modified for the colored map in a similar way as experts: reduced time to first fixation, shorter fixation duration, shorter dwell time, and fewer fixation counts than for the gray-scale map. Since these modifications of gaze patterns were specific to AOI (areas of interest), we concluded that the gaze patterns can be modified even without extensive training, but the underlying mechanisms for this modification would be different from that for the experts’ case.