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Trends in gaze tracking patterns with increasing exposure to anatomy (535.8)
Author(s) -
Zumwalt Ann,
Iyer Arjun,
Ghebremichael Abenet
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.535.8
Subject(s) - gaze , salient , tracking (education) , course (navigation) , eye tracking , psychology , gross anatomy , class (philosophy) , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , medicine , anatomy , engineering , pedagogy , aerospace engineering
The process of learning is complex and multifaceted. It is therefore worthwhile to define objective markers to indicate a learner’s progression. The goal of the present study is to determine whether gaze tracking patterns differ as a function of knowledge acquisition. The eye movements of 31 Medical Gross Anatomy students were recorded while they identified anatomical structures on computer slides. All participants completed the experiment two times: once before they started the class (baseline) and once after one of three course sections (revisit; 10‐11 subjects per section). Participants viewed tagged structures from all three sections of the course and obscure images (animal anatomy). Therefore all subjects viewed some structures about which they had learned and some structures they have never encountered. We predict that with experience the students will attend faster and fixate longer on cognitively salient areas of interest (cAOIs) on images from the section(s) of the course they have completed at the time of revisit. Preliminary analyses of this ongoing experiment indicate that successful students may develop intelligent search strategies with increasing exposure to the course. Subjects who correctly identify the structure fixate for 60‐150% longer on cAOIs, even on obscure images, and take 20‐90% more time to answer than they did at baseline. These trends appear to get stronger later in the course. There are no apparent trends in the speed with which subjects attend to cAOIs. These preliminary results indicate intriguing trends in successful image search strategy with increasing anatomy knowledge. Final analysis will include students’ exam scores, course grades, and visuospatial abilities in the context of gaze variables to compare and contrast the visual search strategies of successful and less successful anatomy students.