Eye Movements and Driving

TResearch into eye movements has become of increasing Interest in driving research as it provides insight into how the driver responds to visual stimuli in traffic. During driving, eye movements are particularly important to monitor the forward traffic scene to avoid potential hazards, allowing the driver to obtain information from their visual field that is useful for effective vehicle control.

The vision and driving research group utilises a number of eye and head tracking systems including fixed and mobile types.

FaceLAB® eye and head tracking system (Seeing Machines Pty Ltd, Lyneham, ACT, Australia): This system consists of a pair of cameras for eye and head tracking and a SceneCamera to record the frontal viewing scenes. As the system provides the tracking of the eye and head at the same time, it is useful to investigate the relative movements of eye and head during driving.

ASL Mobile Eye (Applied Science Technologies, Bedford, MA, USA): The system has no limitations of tracking range and so it can be used to record the pattern of measurements for different targets (distance and near) under dynamic conditions. The system can also be used independently of a computer and as such can be used for tasks where the user is mobile (i.e., not seated).

	Image of FaceLAB®		Image of ASL Mobile Eye

Examples of recordings from the systems

			An image recorded by FaceLAB® in a driving simulator. The circle denotes the focus of the participants’ gaze (blur line), while the square (red line) is the orientation of the drivers’ head.
			An image recorded by ASL MobileEye during driving. This video image shows a driver looking for road signs and focusing on the dividing line of the road. The red cross-hair indicates where the driver is looking at any one time.

Reference

• Chu, Byoung Sun and Wood, Joanne M. and Collins, Michael J. (2009) Influence of presbyopic corrections on driving-related eye and head movements. Optometry and Vision Science, 86(11). pp. 1267-1275.

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