Kansas State University

Gaze-Contingent Multi-Resolutional Displays

People can demand a lot from their single-user computer displays, and they may want or need very high image resolution, large fields of view, and fast image updates. These features may be especially important for virtual reality, simulators, video telephones, teleoperation, telemedicine, or remote piloting. Unfortunately, these combined demands often exceed the available processing resources or transmission bandwidth. One way to economize resources and bandwidth is to use a gaze-contingent multi-resolutional display—a display where high resolution information is available only where the user is looking at each moment and lower resolution is located everywhere else. This can be accomplished by using multi-resolutional images and gaze-tracking.

Our research on this topic investigates the effects of varying the spatial and temporal dimensions of gaze-contingent multi-resolutional displays on user perception and visual task performance. Together with Eyal Reingold and David Stampe at the University of Toronto, and George McConkie at the University of Illinois, we have published a review paper on gaze-contingent multi-resolutional displays aggregating research across the fields of electrical engineering, computer science, vision science, and psychology, and provided a general framework across these areas that can be used to integrate, evaluate, and guide research (Reingold, Loschky, McConkie & Stampe, 2003).

Our research on gaze-contingent multi-resolutional displays has covered several topics:

Matching the Drop-Off of Image Resolution in Gaze-Contingent Multi- Resolutional Displays to That of Human Visual Resolution

The Effects on Perception and Performance When Image Resolution Drops Below the Limits of Visual Resolution

Matching Image Update Rates in Gaze-Contingent Multi-Resolutional Displays to the Temporal Limits of Vision

Related Publications

Loschky, L.C. & Wolverton, G.S. (2007). How late can you update Gaze-contingent Multi-resolutional Displays without detection? ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications, 3(4):24, 1-10.

Loschky, L.C., McConkie, G.W., Yang, J. & Miller, M.E. (2005).  The limits of visual resolution in natural scene viewing. Visual Cognition, 12(6), 1057-1092.

Reingold, E.M., Loschky, L.C., McConkie, G.W., & Stampe, D.M. (2003). Gaze-contingent Multi-resolutional Displays: An integrative review. Human Factors, 45(2), 307-328.

Loschky, L.C., & McConkie, G.W. (2002). Investigating spatial vision and dynamic attentional selection using a gaze-contingent multi-resolutional display. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8(2), 99-117.

McConkie, G. W., & Loschky, L. C. (2002). Perception onset time during fixations in free viewing. Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 34(4), 481-490.

Reingold, E. M., & Loschky, L. C. (2002). Saliency of peripheral targets in gaze-contingent multi-resolutional displays. Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 34(4), 491-499.

McConkie, G.W., Wolverton, G.S. & Loschky, L.C. (2001). An environment for studying gaze-contingent multi-resolutional displays. In M.S. Vassiliou & T.S. Huang (Eds.), Computer-science Handbook for Displays: Summary of Findings from the Army Research Lab’s Advanced Displays & Interactive Displays Federated Laboratory, (pp 55-61). Thousand Oaks, CA: Rockwell Scientific Company.