Pros and Cons of Fixation and Smooth Pursuit Interaction in Assistive Technology: A Review

Assistive technology implements various methods of interaction according to the needs of the user. Eye tracking is one of several interaction methods that detects gaze and trajectory of eye movements to control a computer system. During gaze-based interaction, events detection algorithm is implemented for classifying eye movements. Fixation and smooth pursuit are two most prominent eye movements used in assistive technology. Unfortunately, there is no study that thoroughly investigates advantages and disadvantages of fixation and smooth pursuit eye movement in assistive technology. To handle this research gap, we present a literature study to investigate implementations of fixation and smooth pursuit eye movement in various assistive technologies. We elaborate pros and cons of using fixation and smooth pursuit in their related technologies. Based on our review, we found that smooth pursuit is more useful to be implemented in public assistive technology than fixation. Smooth pursuit-based interaction does not require personal calibration process that takes significant amount of time. With our concluded results, our study may be used as a guidance for early career human-computer interaction researchers and front-end engineers to assess suitability of types of interaction in a gaze-based assistive technology.