Gaze Behaviour During Collision Avoidance Between Walkers: A Preliminary Study to Design an Experimental Platform

When walking, vision is the main source of information that allows us to navigate safely by detecting potential collisions with other walkers. In order to gain a better understanding of the relationship between gaze activity and kinematics of motion during pedestrian interactions, we present in this paper a preliminary study towards designing a more comprehensive experimental platform. In this study, participants are asked to avoid collisions with an upcoming virtual character using a joystick, while we measure their gaze behaviours using an eye-tracker. As we are interested in the effects of potential collisions on gaze activity, i.e., where and when participants look to avoid potential future collisions, we display in our experiment a virtual character for which we vary the initial Time To Closest Approach (ttca) and Distance of Closest Approach (dca) values, to change its risk of collision with our participant. We then measure participant trajectory adjustments and gaze activity during the interaction. Our preliminary results show which type of data this platform produces, and demonstrate the interest of designing more comprehensive experiences and tools to analyze both gaze activity and kinematics.