Visual Fixations Duration as an Indicator of Skill Level in eSports
This research addresses the need for objective skill assessment in eSports, which could inform adaptive interface design, though it is incremental as it applies existing eye-tracking methods to a new domain.
The study tackled the problem of identifying skill levels in eSports players by analyzing visual fixation durations, finding that highly skilled gamers exhibit more variability and bimodal distributions in fixation durations, indicating two distinct fixation types.
Using highly interactive systems like computer games requires a lot of visual activity and eye movements. Eye movements are best characterized by visual fixation - periods of time when the eyes stay relatively still over an object. We analyzed the distributions of fixation duration of professional athletes, amateur and newbie players. We show that the analysis of fixation durations can be used to deduce the skill level in computer game players. Highly skilled gaming performance is characterized by more variability in fixation durations and by bimodal fixation duration distributions suggesting the presence of two fixation types in high skill gamers. These fixation types were identified as ambient (automatic spatial processing) and focal (conscious visual processing). The analysis of computer gamers' skill level via the analysis of fixation durations may be used in developing adaptive interfaces and in interface design.