Eye-pointer coordination in a decision-making task under uncertainty

Eye-tracking (ET) systems, which capture eye movements, are often used to measure human behavior while interacting with a user interface. Given the high costs and challenges of acquiring, installing and ensuring good calibration of ET systems, the use of pointer (or mouse) tracking is gaining interest as a viable alternative in research on human-computer interaction. In this study, we measured and evaluated temporal and spatial relationships between eye and pointer movements in a standardized task that allowed us to examine the relationship between eye and pointer movements while participants made decisions under conditions of high and low uncertainty. We collected data from N=81 participants and applied a range of metrics to a total of 5205 decision trials. The overall findings show that the convergence between eye and pointer movements is consistently high. Importantly, there are differences in levels of convergence depending on the temporal, spatial and combined temporo-spatial metrics used. There are also differences in eye-pointer convergence depending on the relative level of decision uncertainty in the task. In conclusion, the present findings favour the use of pointer tracking to analyse human-computer interaction in more complex tasks.