Cognitive Scientists Use Eye Tracking Technology to Learn What Makes a Great Geologist

Scientists are using eye tracking technology to study what aids geologists in making important discoveries, learn why some geologists are better at their jobs than others, and to understand, in particular, how a successful geologist effectively “teases information out of a terrain with complex features.”

Along with his undergraduate students, John Tarduno, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester, NY, will wear head mounted eye tracking devices during a 10-day study of the San Andreas Fault, the snowy Sierra Nevada near Yosemite National Park, and the deserts of eastern California including Death Valley.

The research is being carried out by Robert Jacobs, Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the university. This is a new way to look at how experience changes how we see,” says Jacobs. “In the past, there had been some attempts to understand how radiologists read an X-ray image, but no one has ever done something like this—where we monitor people out in the natural environment and try to understand how experienced and inexperienced scientists see the same scene differently.”

It’s important and refreshing to see eye-tracking technologies expanded to studies within the sciences themselves. The data will be used to compare the eye tracking statistics and visual habits or techniques of the experienced geologist and that of his students, and the results should help expand similar studies to other fields of science.

There is monetary value in research like this as well: findings could help reduce costs in training young scientists by reproducing virtual field training based on the class’ observations.

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