Music can evoke both positive and negative moods, which may, in turn, differently affect the processing of food cues. This preregistered eye-tracking study investigated whether self-selected liked versus disliked music affects desire to eat, visual attention to foods of varying sugar content, and subsequent food choice in a buffet-like context. A total of 106 participants (mean age = 25 years; mean body mass index = 22 kg/m2) viewed a buffet with high-sugar foods, low-sugar alternatives, and non-foods while eye movements were recorded. Participants were randomly assigned to a liked music, disliked music, or no music condition. Self-reported desire to eat and food choice were assessed. Disliked music decreased general desire to eat but increased the specific desire to eat high-sugar food. Furthermore, it increased the likelihood of selecting high-sugar foods from the buffet. Liked music and no music were associated with a preference for low-sugar foods. Music did not significantly influence visual attention. Participants consistently looked longer at food than non-food items regardless of their music condition. These findings suggest that music can bias food-related decision-making independently of attentional processes: liked music may encourage healthier choices, whereas disliked music increases susceptibility to high-sugar comfort foods despite reduced general appetite. The results highlight the potential of music as a subtle, non-caloric intervention for promoting low-sugar eating behaviour. They also point towards risks of being exposed to disliked music in contexts in which food decisions are being made like in restaurants or supermarkets.

In Western societies, many people are unfamiliar with insect-based foods and reject them, despite their promise as a sustainable alternative to conventional animal protein. This mobile eye-tracking study examined how people view and evaluate insect-based foods in a buffet setting. Thirty-seven participants (mean age = 26 years) freely viewed a buffet containing 12 items from four categories: insect-based snacks, novel non-insect snacks, familiar snacks, and non-food objects. Mobile eye-tracking measured total and mean fixation durations for each item. Participants also rated each food item on disgust and desire to eat. The findings show that insect-based and novel snacks were viewed significantly longer than familiar snacks and non-foods, indicating increased visual engagement rather than oculomotor avoidance. Mean fixation duration did not differ across categories. Insect-based snacks elicited significantly higher disgust and lower desire to eat than both novel and familiar snacks. In conclusion, despite high disgust and low desire to eat, insect-based snacks attracted more visual attention than familiar foods and non-foods. This suggests that food disgust is not associated with oculomotor avoidance which is commonly observed when disgust is elicited by non-food.

Understanding how gaze behaviour and visuomotor control vary across populations is crucial for optimizing performance and training in fast-paced sports. However, studies involving athletes with cognitive disabilities remain limited, particularly in naturalistic environments. This study employed wearable eye-tracking technology to examine gaze behaviour and oculomotor control in table tennis players of differing skill levels and cognitive profiles. Forty-six participants were grouped as Professional athletes, Amateur players, individuals with Down syndrome (DS), or intellectual disabilities (ID). All completed table tennis-specific tasks in naturalistic environment training conditions while wearing a head-mounted eye-tracker. Oculomotor metrics, including fixation frequency and duration, saccade frequency and velocity, and pupil diameter, were analysed. Fixation duration did not differ across groups (≈272–301 ms; p = 0.984, η2 = −0.032), whereas fixation frequency varied: ID participants (80.67 ± 6.81 %) and Amateurs (78.98 ± 5.22 %) showed higher and more consistent rates, DS participants were lower and more variable (74.56 ± 17.37 %), and Professionals maintained moderately lower but strategically balanced frequency (77.78 ± 12.64 %). Although saccade metrics were not statistically significant, trends suggested more controlled patterns in Professionals (right eye (RE) length: 1414.63 ± 720.47 mm; longitudinal velocity: 13,888.52 ± 4242.25 mm/s) and higher variability in DS participants (RE length: 2254.03 ± 3215.55 mm; longitudinal velocity: 16,274.78 ± 6,837.21 mm/s). Pupil diameter was significantly larger in Professionals (RE: 5.26 ± 0.79 mm; left eye (LE): 5.40 ± 0.81 mm; p < 0.001), indicating higher visual engagement and cognitive arousal. Binocular vergence metrics remained stable across groups, and gaze heat maps revealed more focused visual strategies in Professionals, while participants with DS and ID exhibited dispersed, less task-relevant fixations. These findings indicate that the accuracy of eye movements, rather than their duration, serves as a sensitive indicator of visuomotor expertise. In conclusion, wearable eye-tracking in naturalistic sport environment offers valuable insights into visual strategies across diverse populations and supports the development of tailored visual training programs, particularly for athletes with cognitive disabilities.

In daily life, people often interact by taking on leader and follower roles. Unlike laboratory experiments, these interactions unfold naturally and continuously. Although it is well established that gaze typically precedes object manipulation, much less is known about how gaze–hand patterns evolve in interactive settings where one person must take the other’s actions into account. Here, we examine predictive, planning-related behavior in a two-player tabletop game called “do-undo.” Participants alternated as Leader and Follower. The Leader performed simple pick-and-place actions to alter the arrangement of objects, while the Follower used other objects to restore the previous configuration. We recorded eye and hand movements, along with object trajectories, using a system that combined eye tracking with multi-camera motion capture. Touch sensors on the players’ hands provided precise timing of contacts, allowing us to segment cooperative action into well-defined temporal intervals. As expected, eye fixations consistently preceded manipulation, but clear role differences emerged. Leaders looked more often and earlier at target objects. Further, Leaders’ gaze anticipated not only their own actions but also those of the Followers. Leaders also more frequently checked the outcome of the do-undo sequence. Both roles showed gaze patterns consistent with memorization, but alternating gazes between objects and destinations were much more common in Leaders. Some patterns suggested longer-term planning beyond the immediate action. These findings reveal distinct decision-making and planning strategies in Leaders and Followers. Leader-centric interactions, highlighted by Leaders considering not only their own next moves but also their partners’ potential actions, shed light on the complex cognitive processes that underlie everyday human interaction.

Previous driving simulator and on road studies have shown that young drivers are poorer at anticipating road hazards than more experienced drivers. Risk Awareness and Perception Training (RAPT) is a training program shown to improve hazard anticipation skills among young drivers. A recent study suggested that RAPT may reduce crashes more effectively among drivers from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds than those from high-SES backgrounds, implying differential effects of RAPT on accelerating hazard anticipation skills. The present driving simulator experiment directly examined whether RAPT improves latent hazard anticipation differently in young drivers with various SES backgrounds in the United States. Fifty-two participants were randomly assigned to either an active or passive RAPT training group. The active RAPT group completed the full RAPT program that provided knowledge-based instruction on hazard anticipation, rehearsal of hazard anticipation skills, and feedback on errors. The passive RAPT group completed placebo training that included only the knowledge-based content without active practice or feedback. Participants drove eight driving scenarios in a high-fidelity driving simulator immediately before and after the completion of their assigned training.Results showed credible improvements in hazard anticipation performance for the active but not the passive group, suggesting that the active training method was crucial for learning. Low-SES drivers only showed improvements on hazard anticipation performance only after completing the active-training, whereas high-SES drivers improved following either program. These findings suggest that RAPT is generally effective across SES groups, but active training may be particularly important for enhancing hazard anticipation in low-SES young drivers.

Traditional visual quality assessments of rural landscapes rely on subjective methods. This study integrates eye-tracking technology with subjective perception evaluation to construct a visual quality assessment model for rural landscapes, aiming to reveal the intrinsic relationship between objective visual behavior and subjective perception, with the aim of providing scientific guidance for rural landscape planning to promote sustainable rural development. Using landscape photographs from nine rural sampling sites in Guangzhou, eye-tracking experiments were conducted to collect participants’ eye movement data, combined with online questionnaires to obtain scenic beauty ratings and landscape characteristic factor evaluations. The findings reveal the following: (1) Eye-tracking experiments and subjective evaluation results showed high consistency, with samples having higher scenic beauty ratings demonstrating more prominent performance in core eye movement indicators such as total fixation duration and count, and total saccade duration, and typically possessing higher landscape characteristic factor values. (2) Urban–suburban-integrated rural landscapes exhibited poorer visual quality, characteristic-preservation rural landscapes elicited more in-depth and sustained visual exploration, and clustered-improvement rural landscapes possessed higher scenic beauty ratings and landscape characteristic factor values. (3) Total saccade duration was the key eye movement indicator for predicting scenic beauty ratings. (4) Multiple landscape characteristic factors significantly influence eye movement behavior.

Incorrect human behavior is a significant contributor to maritime accidents. Navigation skills therefore represent a critical factor for safety at sea. Integration, digitalization, and intelligent navigation technologies impact Maritime Education and Training (MET). The study aims at understanding how maritime experts and maritime trainees allocate their visual attention to avoid collision during intense maritime traffic in a full-mission bridge simulator. A sample of two experienced active navigators and seven maritime students were fitted with a wearable eye-tracker and placed in different navigational watchkeeping simulation contexts. Individual visual attention was quantified through the analysis of areas of interest (AOIs) and gaze shifts between these AOIs. Experts and novices differ in their gaze patterns. The most prominent difference is that experts make less use of instruments and look out more for information gathering. As ships are complex socio-technical systems, the results of this study may provide Integrated Bridge Systems (IBS) designers and MET professionals with useful insights on the interaction between humans and navigation instruments.

Abstract Changes in pupil size can lead to apparent gaze shifts in data recorded with video-based eye trackers in the absence of physical eye rotation. This is known as the pupil-size artifact (PSA). While the PSA is widely reported in desktop eye trackers, it is unknown whether and to what extent it occurs in head-mounted eye trackers. In this paper, we examined the effects of pupil size variations on eye-tracking data quality in four head-mounted eye trackers: the Pupil Core, the Pupil Neon, the SMI ETG 2w, and the Tobii Pro Glasses 2, in addition to a widely used desktop eye tracker, the SR Research EyeLink 1000 Plus. Participants viewed a central target on a monitor while we systematically varied the screen brightness to induce controlled pupil size changes. All head-mounted eye trackers exhibited PSA, with apparent gaze shifts ranging from 0.94 for the Pupil Neon to 3.46 for the Pupil Core. Except for the Pupil Neon, all eye trackers exhibited a significant change in accuracy due to pupil size variations. Precision measures showed device-specific effects of pupil size changes, with some eye trackers performing better in the bright condition and others in the dark condition. These findings demonstrated that, just like desktop eye trackers, head-mounted video-based eye trackers exhibited PSA.