Eye gaze serves multiple functions in human-human communication. The speaker may use gaze to reference an object in the environment, or to indicate attention to the listener, and or to manage who has the floor, among other functions.
Researchers have long been interested in the role of eye gaze in human machine interaction. It has been used as a pointing mechanism in direct manipulation interfaces, for example, to assist users with “locked-in syndrome”. It has also been used to reflect information needs in web search and tailor information presentation. Based on joint attention indicated by eye gaze, it has been used as a facilitator in computer supported human-human communication. In conversational interfaces, eye gaze has been used to improve language understanding and intention recognition. It has also been incorporated in multimodal behavior of embodied conversational agents. Recent work on human robot interaction has further explored eye gaze in incremental language processing, visual scene processing, and conversation engagement and grounding. Given the recent advances in eye tracking technology and the availability of non-intrusive and high performance eye tracking devices, there has never been a better time to explore new opportunities to incorporate eye gaze in intelligent and natural human machine communication.
This workshop intends to bring researchers from academia and industry together to share recent advances and discuss research directions and opportunities for next generation of human machine interaction that incorporate eye gaze.
Last modified Jan 9, 2010