Humans move their eyes about three times a second. Eyes move to fixate on objects of interest and then quickly move on. They move primarily because visual acuity is very good in the central part of vision (the fovea) but reduces dramatically away from the current point of fixation.

We can only really see clearly what we are currently fixating. When the eyes are stationary on an object, visual information about that object is gathered. However, at the same time the limited vision capability in the periphery of our visual field is used to decide where to look next.

BVI researchers, including Roland Baddeley, Iain Gilchrist, Ute Leonards and Casimir Ludwig have a long tradition of recording eye movements as a basis for understanding visual behaviour in both humans and animals. Understanding this active vision process is central to our fundamental understanding of human vision, as well as allowing us to scale up our knowledge to address more complex applied visual problems. As well as its fundamental research contributions, BVI’s eye tracking work has found applications in product placement, robotic guidance and in assessing visual immersion.