2021-06-04: ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA) 2021 Trip Report

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The 13th ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA2021) was hosted virtually (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) jointly by the University of Stuttgart, Germany and the Ulm University, Germany, between May 24 - 27, 2021 on MeetAnyway platform. This was my (Gavindya Jayawardena) first time attending ETRA. I attended paper sessions and keynotes where scientists and practitioners of all disciplines presented their work via Zoom on MeetAnyway. ETRA aims to bring together eye tracking researchers from Computer Science and Psychology/Cognitive Science. The motto of this year's conference was "Bridging Communities". There were more than 300 participants who attended ETRA 2021 virtually, making ETRA 2021 the largest ETRA Conference in the history. The paper presentations consisted of papers accepted for both ETRA 2021 and ETRA 2020 since ETRA 2020 was cancelled.


Day 1


On 24th of May, the ETRA 2021 Doctoral Symposium took place immediately preceding the technical program of ETRA 2021. The Doctoral Symposium allows students to present their research and receive feedback and general advice from the experts in eye-tracking.

Day 2

Welcome

Day 2 of ETRA 2021 started off with welcome speeches by Prof. Andreas Bulling (ETRA 2021 General Chair, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart, Germany), Prof. Hans Gellersen (ETRA 2021 Full Paper Chair, Professor of Computer Science at the Aarhus University, Denmark), and Prof. Anke Huckauf (ETRA 2021 General Chair, Head of Department, General Psychology at the Ulm University, Germany).


During the welcome ceremony, the Best Paper Awards and Honourable Mention Awards were announced.

Best Full Paper Award: "HGaze Typing: Head-Gesture Assisted Gaze Typing", by Wenxin Feng, Jiangnan Zou, Andrew Kurauchi, Carlos H Morimoto, and Margrit Betke.

Best Short Paper Award: "OpenNEEDS: A Dataset of Gaze, Head, Hand, and Scene Signals During Exploration in Open-Ended VR Environments", by Kara J Emery, Marina Zannoli, James Warren, Lei Xiao, and Sachin S Talathi.

Honourable Mention Short Paper Award: "EyeLogin - Calibration-free Authentication Method For Public Displays Using Eye Gaze", by Omair Shahzad Bhatti, Michael Barz, and Daniel Sonntag.


Following the welcome statements, day 2 of ETRA 2021 started with Posters & Demos & Videos I session followed by three Full Paper sessions, Keynote I, and Posters & Demos & Videos II session.

Posters & Demos & Videos I

Since the conference was virtual this year, the authors of posters, demos, and videos was assigned their own space in MeetAnyway platform. At the beginning of this session the conference host played all teaser videos uploaded by the authors. Then, conference attendees were directed to the Short Paper Posters & Videos Day 1 space in MeetAnyway platform to explore the presentations according to their preference.

Full Papers I: Methods I

Anderson Schrader from Clemson University began this session with a full paper presentation titled: Toward Eye-Tracked Sideline Concussion Assessment in eXtended Reality, in which they presented methods for development of sideline concussion assessment via eye-tracking and virtual reality. Co-author Dr. Andrew Duchowski from Clemson University answered questions about technical challenges they faced when using HoloLens 2 for eye-tracking.


Then, Tanya Bafna from Technical University of Denmark presented the full paper presentation titled: Cognitive Load during Eye-typing. They have used a subjective score as the indicator of cognitive load and their results show that memorization and eye-typing can be used as cognitive load measurement.
Finally, Anton Mølbjerg Eskildsen from IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, presented the full paper presentation titled: Label Likelihood Maximisation: Adapting iris segmentation models using domain adaptation.

Keynote I

Dr. Peter König from Institute of Cognitive Science at Universität Osnabrück, Germany, delivered the first keynote of ETRA 2021. Dr. Peter König is the chair in Neurobiopsychology at the Institute of Cognitive Science, at Universität Osnabrück, Germany. His research focuses on embodied cognition and the neurophysiological basis of cognitive functions. The title of his keynote was: Eye Movements as a Window to Cognitive Processes in the lab, VR, and the real-world. Dr. Peter König's keynote emphasized that cognitive process measures must allow relevant questions and evaluating actions of participants allows the investigation of cognitive process.


Full Papers II: Gaze Analysis and Interaction

This session began with Nora Castner from University of Tuebingen, Germany presenting the first full paper of the session, titled: Deep semantic gaze embedding and scanpath comparison for expertise classification during OPT viewing. The goals of the study have been to use gained insights while viewing medical images for the education of novice people and to automate scanpath classification.


Then, Nora Castner from University of Tuebingen, Germany presented their second full paper of the session, titled: A MinHash approach for fast scanpath classification. Their paper proposed a MinHash approach for efficient scanpath similarity calculation.


Finally, Teresa Hirzle from Ulm University, Germany, presented the full paper presentation titled: A Survey of Digital Eye Strain in Gaze-Based Interactive Systems. Their paper emphasized on the fact that gaze interaction techniques cause digital eye strain.

Full Papers III: Applications


Then, Umur Aybars Ciftci from Binghamton University presented the full paper presentation titled: Where Do Deep Fakes Look? Synthetic Face Detection via Gaze Tracking. They have used several gaze features and compiled them into signatures to compare them in real and fake videos, formulating geometric, visual, metric, temporal, and spectral variations.


Next, Wenxin Feng from Google AI presented the full paper presentation titled: HGaze Typing: Head-Gesture Assisted Gaze Typing which won the Best Full Paper Award. Their paper introduces a bi-modal typing interface named HGaze Typing. It combines the head gestures with the speed of gaze input to provide text entry. It allows activation of text entry commands of such as selection, deletion, and revision, by using head gestures.

Finally, Robert Bixler from University of Notre Dame presented the full paper presentation titled: Crossed Eyes: Domain Adaptation for Gaze-Based Mind Wandering Models.

Day 3

Day 3 of ETRA 2021 started with Posters & Demos & Videos III session followed by three Full Paper sessions, Keynote II, and Posters & Demos & Videos IV session.

Posters & Demos & Videos III

Similar to day 2's Posters & Demos & Videos session, at the beginning of this session the conference host played all teaser videos uploaded by the authors. Then, conference attendees were directed to the Short Paper Posters & Videos Day 2 space in MeetAnyway platform to explore the presentations according to their preference.

Full Papers IV: Gaze Input

This session began with Argenis Ramirez Gomez from Cardiff University, United Kingdom, presenting the first full paper of the session, titled: Gaze+Hold: Eyes-only Direct Manipulation with Continuous Gaze Modulated by Closure of One Eye. Gaze+Hold is an eyes-only technique that use eyes as separate input channels, with one eye modulating the state of interaction while the other provides continuous input. Gaze+Hold enables manipulations such as multiple selection, panning & scrolling, and zooming. The presented work enables eyes-only direct manipulation by using eyes as separate input channels.

Next, Yasmeen Abdrabou from Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany, presented the full paper presentation titled: GazeMeter: Exploring the Usage of Gaze Behaviour to enhance Password Assessments. They use users’ understanding of password strength in security mechanisms by analyzing the gaze behavior during password creation. They have shown that password strength is reflected in user's gaze behavior.


Next, Myungguen Choi from Hokkaido University, Japan, presented the full paper presentation titled: Bubble Gaze Cursor + Bubble Gaze Lens: Applying Area Cursor Technique to Eye-gaze Interface. In this paper, they have conducted two studies exploring how an area cursor technique can improve the eye-gaze interface. They have examined bubble cursor technique and bubble gaze lens. They have found that bubble gaze cursor is significantly faster than standard point cursor based eye gaze interface, whereas bubble gaze lens is faster than bubble gaze cursor.

Finally, Vinay Krishna Sharma from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, presented the full paper presentation titled: Eye Gaze Controlled Robotic Arm for Persons with Severe Speech and Motor Impairment.

Keynote II

Dr. Päivi Majaranta from Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences at Tampere University, Finland, delivered the second keynote of ETRA 2021. Dr. Päivi Majaranta is a Senior Research Fellow at Tampere University, Finland, where she teaches courses on human-technology interaction. Her research interests include gaze interaction, multimodal interfaces, user experience, and animal-computer interaction. The title of her keynote was: Vision for Augmented Humans. Dr. Päivi Majaranta's keynote emphasized that haptic feedback enables gaze gesture interaction more natural and attentive interfaces should be designed in a manner that system state is visible to the user and user has control over the system.

Full Papers V: Visualization and Annotation

This session began with Fabian Göbel from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, presenting the first full paper of the session, titled: Gaze-Adaptive Lenses for Feature-Rich Information Spaces. This paper discussed the design space for gaze-adaptive lenses. The authors presented an approach that automatically displays additional details with respect to visual focus.

Next, Maurice Koch from University of Stuttgart, Germany presented the full paper presentation titled: Visual Analytics and Annotation of Pervasive Eye Tracking Video. In this paper, authors propose a visual analytics approach to annotate pervasive eye tracking video. Their approach enables both efficient annotation and direct interpretation of the results.

Then, Günter Wallner from Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands, presented the full paper presentation titled: The Power of Linked Eye Movement Data Visualizations. They have created a tool to interpret visual attention patterns and to facilitate data analysis for eye movement data. The tool supports four visualization techniques: 2D density plot, scanpath representation, bee swarm, and scarf plot. Their tool allows users to select data in one visualization, and then selected data will be highlighted in all active visualizations for comparison tasks. The user study has showed that the introduced tool is understandable & providing linked customizable views is beneficial for analyzing eye-movement data.

Next, Kuno Kurzhals from University of Stuttgart, Germany presented the full paper presentation titled: Image-Based Projection Labeling for Mobile Eye Tracking. This paper presents an interactive visualization approach that supports annotation of gaze data based on image content participants focused on. This paper emphasizes that image based projection labelling enables an efficient way to make eye-movement data from mobile eye-trackers such as HoloLens.

Finally, Lena Stubbemann from University of Kassel, Germany, presented the full paper presentation titled: Neural Networks for Semantic Gaze Analysis in XR Settings. They presented an approach which minimizes time & information necessary to annotate volumes of interest by using techniques from object recognition. They have trained CNNs on synthetic data sets derived from virtual models using image augmentation technique.

Full Papers VI: Methods II

Dr. Andrew Duchowski from Clemson University was the Session Chair of the final full paper session of ETRA 2021. This session began with Maryam Keyvanara from Computer Science York University, Canada, presenting the first full paper of the session, titled: Effect of a Constant Camera Rotation on the Visibility of Transsaccadic Camera Shifts. In 3D games and VR, changes in fixation occur during locomotion or other simulated head movements. The authors have investigated whether a constant camera rotation in a virtual scene modulates saccadic suppression. They have found that camera motion had a strong effect than saccade direction on transsaccadic detectabilities. They have used a velocity based saccade detection algorithm to detect saccades in real-time.

Next, Sachin S. Talathi from Facebook presented the full paper presentation titled: Dataset for Eye Tracking on a Virtual Reality Platform. They presented a large dataset of eye-images captured using a VR headset with 2 synchronized eye-facing cameras at a frame rate of 200 Hz. This dataset has been compiled from video captures of the eye-region collected from 152 participants.

Next, Prof. Kenneth Holmqvist from Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland and University of Regensburg, Germany, presented the full paper presentation titled: Validation of a prototype hybrid eye-tracker against the DPI and the Tobii Spectrum. They have benchmarked a new hybrid eye-tracker system against DPI (Dual Purkinje Imaging) tracker & Tobii Spectrum in a series of 3 experiments. They have showed that precision of the new eye-tracker is better than both DPI and Spectrum, but that accuracy is not better.




Finally, Anton Mølbjerg Eskildsen from IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, presented the full paper presentation titled: Analysis of iris obfuscation: Generalising eye information processes for privacy studies in eye tracking. They presented a framework to model and evaluate obfuscation methods for removing sensitive information in eye-tracking. They have focused on preventing iris-pattern identification.

Day 4

The final day of ETRA 2021 started with two workshops and one tutorial, followed by Keynote III, Closing & TownHall Meeting, and six other workshops and tutorials.

Keynote III

Philipp Reiter from Eye Square GmbH, a market research agency headquartered in Berlin, Germany, delivered the third keynote of ETRA 2021. Philipp Reiter is COO & Partner at Eye Square GmbH. He is a psychologist and specializes in cognitive information processing and implicit research methodologies. He is particularly concerned with the optimal implementation and combination of innovative neuroscientific measures including eye-tracking, EEG, and EDA in user, brand and shopper research. The title of his keynote was: Eye-tracking as an Implicit Method in Applied Research Settings. Philipp Reiter's keynote emphasized that challenges in eye-tracking include no proper integration in research and difficult interpretation of results. He also explained different perspectives in eye-tracking using example studies done in applied eye-tracking such as eye-tracking during driving, eye-tracking during shopping, smartphone eye-tracking, and e-commerce. Most of the studies in applied eye-tracking have been done using Pupil Labs eye-trackers due to their mobility.


Closing & TownHall Meeting

After three successful days, marking the closing of biggest ETRA conference in the history, the general chairs Prof. Andreas Bulling (Professor of Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart, Germany) and Prof. Anke Huckauf (Head of Department, General Psychology at the Ulm University, Germany) delivered the vote of thanks.

During the TownHall Meeting Dr. Krzysztof Krejtz (ETRA 2021 Tutorial Chair, Head of Eye Tracking Research Center at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland) and Dr. Bonita Sharif (ETRA 2021 Tutorial Chair, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Nebraska) announced that ETRA Conference is moving to Dual Journal Model starting from ETRA 2022. The full papers will be published in special issues of Journals PACMHCI (Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction) and PACMCGIT (Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques), whereas short papers will be published in ETRA Proceedings as in last years.

Finally, Dr. Bonita Sharif announced that Dr. Frederich Shic from Seattle Children's Research Institute and University of Washington and Dr. Enkelejda Kasneci from University of Tübingen, Germany will be taking over the duties as Conference Chairs of ETRA 2022. It was also announced that ETRA 2022 will be held as a hybrid conference (both virtual and in-person) from 8th of June 2022 to 11th of June 2022 at Seattle Downtown, WA, USA.



-- Gavindya (@Gavindya2)












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