Affiliation:
1. Faculty of Engineering Bar‐Ilan University Ramat Gan Israel
2. School of Optometry and Vision Science, Faculty of Life Science Bar‐Ilan University Ramat Gan Israel
3. The Leslie and Susan Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center Bar‐Ilan University Ramat Gan Israel
Abstract
ABSTRACTHere we propose a not pupil‐dependent microsaccades tracking technique and a novel detection method. We present a proof of concept for detecting microsaccades using a non‐contact laser‐based photonic system recording and processing the temporal changes of speckle patterns scattered from an eye sclera. The data, simultaneously recorded by the speckle‐based tracker (SBT) and the video‐based eye tracker (Eyelink), was analyzed by the frequently used detection method of Engbert and Kliegl (E&K) and by advanced machine learning detection (MLD) techniques. We detected 93% of microsaccades in the SBT data out of microsaccades detected in the Eyelink data with the E&K method. By utilizing MLD, a precision of 86% was achieved. The findings of our study demonstrate a potential improvement in measuring tiny eye movements, such as microsaccades, using speckle‐based eye tracking and, thus, an alternative to video‐based eye tracking for detecting microsaccades.