FutureVision: A methodology for the investigation of future cognition
This addresses the challenge of quantifying cognitive load in future scenario comprehension for researchers in cognitive science and human-computer interaction, but it is incremental as it builds on existing eye-tracking and semantic methods.
The paper tackles the problem of measuring cognitive effort in understanding future scenarios by combining multimodal semantic analysis with eye-tracking, finding that far-future and pessimistic scenarios lead to longer fixations and more erratic saccades, indicating increased cognitive load.
This paper presents a methodology combining multimodal semantic analysis with an eye-tracking experimental protocol to investigate the cognitive effort involved in understanding the communication of future scenarios. To demonstrate the methodology, we conduct a pilot study examining how visual fixation patterns vary during the evaluation of valence and counterfactuality in fictional ad pieces describing futuristic scenarios, using a portable eye tracker. Participants eye movements are recorded while evaluating the stimuli and describing them to a conversation partner. Gaze patterns are analyzed alongside semantic representations of the stimuli and participants descriptions, constructed from a frame semantic annotation of both linguistic and visual modalities. Preliminary results show that far-future and pessimistic scenarios are associated with longer fixations and more erratic saccades, supporting the hypothesis that fractures in the base spaces underlying the interpretation of future scenarios increase cognitive load for comprehenders.