Animated triangles: An eye tracking investigation

Abstract

We presented three types of animations on an eye tracking monitor to 31 adult participants. In line with previous work, verbal descriptions of these animations indicate that one type (theory of mind or ToM) evokes mental state attributions, while another type (random) does not, with an intermediate category (goal-directed) evoking a moderate amount of mental state attributions. We expected longer fixations with greater depth of processing, which we assume is required for mental state attributions. In line with this expectation we found that the ToM animations invited long fixations; the random animations invited short fixations, while the goal-directed animations invited an intermediate amount of fixations, with some clips inviting shorter and others longer fixations. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to capture systematic differences in behaviour while viewing animations not only by means of a verbal measure, but also in terms of a simple measure of eye movements.

Keywords:

• Eye movements
• Perception
• Theory of mind

The reported data were collected at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychology in Leipzig, Germany. The animations were designed by Uta Frith and Francesca Happé and first used by Abell, Happé, and Frith, 2000, and Castelli, Happé, Frith, and Frith, 2000. We especially thank Stephanie Spengler for editing the animations to shorten them and equate their length. We also thank Franziska Salden, Andrea Hamann, and Charlotte Hentze for help in data collection and scoring. Jan Zwickel is supported within the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) excellence initiative research cluster “cognition for technical systems–CoTeSys” (see also www.cotesys.org).