Gaze Interaction and Applications of Eye Tracking Advances in Assistive Technologies

Recent advances in eye tracking technology will allow for a proliferation of new applications. Improvements in interactive methods using eye movement and gaze control could result in faster and more efficient human computer interfaces, benefitting users with and without disabilities. Gaze Interaction and Applications of Eye Tracking: Advances in Assistive Technologies focuses on interactive communication and control tools based on gaze tracking, including eye typing, computer control, and gaming, with special attention to assistive technologies. For researchers and practitioners interested in the applied use of gaze tracking, the book offers instructions for building a basic eye tracker from off-the-shelf components, gives practical hints on building interactive applications, presents smooth and efficient interaction techniques, and summarizes the results of effective research on cutting edge gaze interaction applications.

Päivi Majaranta is a researcher at the University of Tampere, where she also received her PhD in Interactive Technology in 2009. She has worked on several research projects related to eye tracking. She is especially interested in the application of eye tracking in gaze-controlled and gaze-aware interfaces.

Hirotaka Aoki is an Associate Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. He received his PhD in Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology. His current research interests lie in the application of eye tracking techniques to cognitive work analysis, usability engineering and consumer behaviour analysis.

Mick Donegan is the Founder and Director of SpecialEffect, a charity dedicated to providing enhanced opportunities for people with disabilities to access video games and express themselves through design and music. He was awarded a PhD by Birmingham University in 2006 for an investigation into the conditions for the successful use of Assistive Technology in mainstream education. He was the coordinator of the User Requirements element of COGAIN, a European gaze control and disability project and is currently an Advisor for TOBI, a European funded project on brain control and disability.

Dan Witzner Hansen is an Associate Professor within the Innovative Communication group at the IT University of Copenhagen, where is also received his PhD. He has been assistant professor at both ITU and the Technical University of Denmark and has been a visiting researcher at Cavendish laboratories, University of Cambridge, UK. His research interests are within computer vision and machine learning for interactive purposes with as special focus on eye tracking and gaze interaction in mobile scenarios. He is the author of several papers and patents related to eye and gaze tracking.

John Paulin Hansen is an Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. He received his PhD in psychology from Aarhus University. Hansen has a major interest in gaze interaction and Assistive Technologies. He has been pioneering the use of gaze tracking for usability studies and was one of the initiators of the COGAIN network. Hansen is now head of the Innovative Communication research group at IT University of Copenhagen.

Aulikki Hyrskykari is a Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Tampere. She obtained her Lic.Phil degree in Computer Science in 1995 and her PhD in Interactive Tecnology in 2006 at the University of Tampere. She worked as a coordinator in the EU FP5 IST Project iEye, a three year project which focused on studying gaze assisted access to information. She has also acted as a program and organizing committee member in several international HCI conferences, most recently as the program chair of the ACM Eye Tracking Research and Applications conference ETRA 2010.

Kari-Jouko Räihä is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Tampere. He received his PhD in 1982 at the University of Helsinki. He has done research in compiler construction, databases and for the past 20 years in human-computer interaction. He is particularly interested in new interaction techniques for the desktop environment and in the use of eye gaze for analyzing interaction and as an input channel. He has led tens of research projects, including the COGAIN Network of Excellence funded by the European Commission. He is currently the Dean of the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tampere.