The PUPILLO tracker: next generation eye tracking

Eye-tracking is one of the most valuable tools for measuring human behaviour, applicable to multiple populations and stages of development, and their use has enjoyed an exponential increase both within and outside of research. Pupil size, measurable with eye-trackers, provides a valuable index of a wide range of cognitive functions.

However, pupillometry has significant untapped potential because current commercial eye-trackers are unable to provide reliable indications of cognitively driven pupil changes.

This results in a restricted design space for research, large loss of data and often unreliable measurement.We propose a novel architecture of remote eye-tracker for behavioural research, conceived to address both the problem of large data loss, and the problem of reliability of pupil size changes.

Our solution addresses these pains at both the hardware and software levels, with a series of innovations including an identical offline mode to retrieve otherwise lost data, and autofocus and robotic tracking to accommodate much greater participant movement.

In pilot experiments, with infants, we have increased the proportion of usable data from about 50% with the current state of the art, to close to 100%.

We are currently developing procedures and algorithms to compensate for the light reflex so that pupil dynamics data is deconfounded, and acquisition possible over a much larger span of stimuli and situations.

PUPILLO aims to become the next generation eye-tracker, providing the research and medical communities and beyond, with a cost-effective, easy-to-use and customizable solution to fully exploit the potential of gaze tracking and pupillometry.