A Breadth-First Survey of Eye Tracking Applications <s> Visual Inspection <s> To establish whether the eye-movement strategy in visual search is changeable by training, three groups of ten subjects each were trained on different strategies using performance feedback and eye movement monitoring. The task was inspection of simulated solder joint arrays, with three levels of field size and three target types. Training in systematic search produced significantly higher performance than natural search, while random search training degraded performance. These results generalized across both field size and target types. Individual differences were less well predicted by pretests than in comparable studies. It is concluded that strategy training can be effective in adoption of a desirable systematic search strategy. <s> BIB001 </s> A Breadth-First Survey of Eye Tracking Applications <s> Visual Inspection <s> The reported research extends classic findings that after briefly viewing structured, but not random, chess positions, chess masters reproduce these positions much more accurately than less- skilled players. Using a combination of the gaze-contingent window paradigm and thechange blindness flicker paradigm, we documented dramatically larger visual spans for experts while processing struc- tured, but not random, chess positions. In addition, in a check- detection task, a minimized 3 ◊ 3 chessboard containing a King and potentially checking pieces was displayed. In this task, experts made fewer fixations per trial than less-skilled players, and had a greater proportion of fixations between individual pieces, rather than on pieces. Our results provide strong evidence for a perceptual encoding advantage for experts attributable to chess experience, rather than to a general perceptual or memory superiority. Simon and Chase (1973) proposed that much as Drosophila can be used as a model organism for the study of genetics, chess offers cognitive scientists an ideal task environment for the study of skilled performance. Since 1946, when de Groot (1978) conducted his pio- neering investigation showing that perception and memory are more important differentiators of expertise than is the ability to think ahead in the search for good moves, chess research has been instrumental in enhancing understanding of human expertise (Ericsson & Charness, 1994) and in contributing to the study of artificial intelligence (Char- ness, 1992). In a classic study, Chase and Simon (1973a, 1973b) replicated and extended de Groot's findings that after viewing chess positions for only a few seconds, chess masters were able to reproduce these positions much more accurately than less-skilled players. There was little difference in performance as a function of expertise when random board configurations were used, indicating that the superior immediate memory performance of the skilled players was not attrib- utable to a general superiority or unique structure of their memory systems or processes (e.g., photographic memory; see Binet, 1894). Rather, Chase and Simon postulated that experts use chess knowledge to create meaningful chunks consisting of several chess pieces, and are thus able to encode structured, but not random, chess configura- tions more quickly and accurately. More recently, a very small but reliable advantage in recall for random configurations has been shown for more expert players, though this is probably attributable to the occasional presence of familiar chunks in random positions (Gobet & Simon, 1996a). Further illustrating the critical importance of knowl- edge structures for performance, Chi's (1978) work comparing chil- dren who were skilled chess players with novice adults showed an advantage for children in chess recall, but an advantage for adults in digit recall. Chase and Simon (1973a, 1973b) hypothesized that much of the skilled chess player's advantage lies in the early perceptual organiza- tion and internal representation of the chess position. Specifically, they argued that the link between skilled perception and skilled prob- lem solving was to be found in the associations between perceptual chunks and generation of plausible moves. The size of an expert's vocabulary of chess-related configurations was initially estimated to be 50,000 to 100,000 chunks (Simon & Gilmartin, 1973), although small perceptual chunks are most likely supplemented by larger struc- tures termed templates (Gobet & Simon, 1996b). <s> BIB002
In a survey of eye movements in industrial inspection, Megaw and Richardson (1979) , identify the following relevant eye movement parameters: fixation times, number of fixations, spatial distribution of fixations, interfixation distances, direction of eye movements, and sequential indices (i.e., scanpaths). Megaw and Richardson review previous inspection studies where eye movements were recorded, including inspection of sheet metal, empty bottles, integrated circuits, and tapered roller bearings. Besides being useful for gaging inspection performance, eye movements may play a part in training visual search strategy BIB001 . Visual search strategy training can be effective in adoption of a desirable systematic search strategy. To train visual search strategy, eye movements may be used as both a feedback mechanism and as confirmation of adoption of the new search strategy. Duchowski, Medlin, Gramopadhye, Melloy, and Nair (2001) investigated the utility of eye movements for search training in a virtual environment simulating aircraft inspection. The user's gaze direction, as well as head position and orientation, were tracked to allow recording of the user's fixations within the environment. Analysis of eye movements leads to two observations. First, mean fixation times do not appear to change significantly following training. Second, the number of fixations appears to decrease following training. These results generally appear to agree with the expectation of reduced number of fixations with the adoption of an improved visual search strategy (e.g., due to learning or familiarization of the task)  . Recently, BIB002 review the motivation behind using chess as an ideal task environment for the study of skilled performance. Reingold et al. study visual span as a function of chess skill (expert vs. intermediate vs. novice) and configuration type (chess configuration vs. random configuration) using a gazecontingent window technique. The paper extends classic work demonstrating that after viewing structured, but not random, chess positions for five seconds, chess masters reproduced these positions much more accurately than lesser skilled players. These results provide strong evidence for a perceptual encoding advantage for experts attributable to chess experience, rather than to a general perceptual or memory superiority.