Catch every blink: A new blink detection method with eye tracking

Webinar information

This research webinar dives deep into the topic of eye blinks. Dr. Marisa Biondi will set the stage and provide a beginner-friendly introduction to blinks. The guest speaker, Dr. Marcus Nyström from Lund University, will present the latest blink detection method based on eyelid tracking and compare this new approach to the commonly used data loss method. 

The talks

A beginner’s guide to blinks

Speaker: Dr. Marisa Biondi, Tobii

Description: Blinks involve the rapid closing and opening of the eyelids, and serve to moisten the eyes, relieve eyelid tension, or prevent injury. Beyond these primary functions, blinks offer valuable insights into human cognition, motor control, and behavior. This talk will explore how blink measurements can add to our understanding of attention, decision-making, time perception and even creativity.

Dr. Marisa Biondi will present how various research fields, ranging from psychology to human factors and consumer research can benefit by including blink metric in their research.

What is a blink? Classifying and characterizing blinks in eye openness signals

Speaker: Dr. Marcus Nyström, Associate Professor of Ergonomics, works as a Research Engineer, Lund University Humanities Lab

Description: Blinks are widely studied across various fields of human behavior research. In data from video-based eye trackers, blink rate and duration are often estimated from the pupil-size signal, though it lacks direct information about eyelid position. In this talk, Dr. Marcus Nyström will share findings from his latest study, comparing blinks detected from eye openness (i.e., eyelid position) and pupil-size signals. He will also discuss the robustness of blink detection in low-quality eye tracking data.