What's better than an eye tracker in a lab? A room full of them! On Thursday the new eye tracking lab at Lund University HumLab was opened. It's housed in the basement of the Center of Language and Linguistics, close to the existing eye tracking lab where I did my Masters thesis on gaze interaction in 2008. The new lab is termed "the digital classroom" and features 25 eye tracking equipped computers for large studies on electronic media and education. During the last ten years the HumLab group have pursued research on the education processes, how students read educational material and how their reading style evolves during university studies. The digital classroom contains eye trackers from German manufacturer SMI (RED-M) and is co-financed by the Wallenberg foundation and Lund University for a total investment of 2.2 million SEK (US$328k). In January a new project starts that aims at improving learning in elementary and high school. Big congrats to Kenneth Holmqvist and the team. Very exciting to see the output of this!
Kenneth Holmqvist and Jana Holsanova (on the right)
By the way, I'm in the process of reading a book by the same group titled "Eye Tracking: A comprehensive guide to methods and measures". It is, by far, the most accurate, comprehensive and well-written publication on eye tracking and associated research to this date. A must-read for any serious researcher and/or developer.
