The eyes have it...

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design.

When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.




This image of George Brett was part of a larger page with his biographical information. All users tested looked the image, but there was a distinct difference in focus between men and women.

Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site. [emphasis mine]

We're so doomed.
Tom

Comments

Hypothesis

[elusiveat.livejournal.com]

Getting information from a photograph of a person engaged in a full-body physical activity relies heavily on full-body position. By fixating on the region of the "private anatomy" men also tend to take in information about how the body is balanced. In this picture in particular, the genitals are located near the exact center of the area of the photograph occupied by the ball-player's body, and therefore is optimal for taking in the full body through peripheral vision, as well as obtaining relevant information about the position of legs relative to the center of mass.

In our culture, men are more likely to have participated in some manner of physical sport, and therefore will have been trained (directly, or through intuitive learning) to take information in from a full-body perspective.

People who do not have this type of training will tend to fixate on faces, because we have millions of years of evolution training our visual system to pick up on faces of conspecifics, as well as the faces of other animals that might be a source of food or danger to us. This tendency will exist even in people who have trained.

I'd be curious to see the geometric composition of the images of animals that were used in the study. Depending upon how the animals were arranged, this hypothesis might be more or less plausible. I could easily imagine how looking at the "naughty bits of a horse" might provide information about the movement of the animal. On the other hand, staring at the genitals of a dog sprawled out on its back in "doggie porn" style seems far less likely to provide useful information about physical activity.