US 9,176,581 B2 · System and method for inferring user intent based on eye movement during observation of a display screen

Abstract

A device, method, and system for inferring user intent to perform an action on a computing device includes monitoring the eye movement patterns of a user and determining the action to be performed based on the eye movement patterns. Signals relating to the eye movement of the user while observing a display screen of the computing device are processed to produce at least one eye movement feature. One or more classifiers are generated based on a training set of data of the eye movement feature over a time interval in which the user observes the display screen with an intent to activate the action. Thereafter, an eye-movement-pattern of the user may be analyzed, and features may be extracted, as the user is observing the display screen. The intended action is automatically activated if the user intent is inferred using the one or more of the classifiers.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A user computing device to infer user intent to initiate action on the user computing device, comprising:

a display screen to display graphic content resulting from execution of a user application,
an eye movement processing module to process signals relating to eye movement of a user viewing the graphic content on the display screen to produce at least one eye movement feature,
a user-intent learning module to
(i) generate a training set of data comprising at least one record of the at least one eye movement feature over a first time interval in which the user observes the graphic content on the display screen with an intent to initiate the action and
(ii) learn a classifier for the action from the training set of data,
a classification module to
(i) invoke the classifier using a record of the at least one eye movement feature over a second time interval in which the user observes the graphic content on the display screen and
(ii) infer an intent of the user to initiate the action as a function of the output of the classifier;
and
an action selection module to automatically activate the action in response to inferring that the intent of the user is to initiate the action.

7 more elements

One or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media comprising a plurality of instructions stored thereon that, in response to being executed, result in a computing device:

processing signals relating to eye movement of a user viewing graphic content displayed by the user computing device in response to execution of a user application to produce at least one eye movement feature,
generating a training set of data comprising at least one record of the at least one eye movement feature over a first time interval in which the user observes the graphic content on the display screen with an intent to initiate an action,
determining a classifier for the action from the training set of data, invoking the classifier using a record of the at least one eye movement feature over a second time interval in which the user observes the graphic content of the display;
inferring an intent of the user to initiate the action as a function of the output of the classifier;
and
automatically initiating the action in response to inferring that the intent of the user is to initiate the action.

3 more elements

A method of inferring user intent to initiate an action of a user application executed on a user computing device, the method comprising:

processing signals relating to eye movement of a user viewing graphic content displayed by the user computing device in response to execution of the user application to produce at least one eye movement feature;
generating a training set of data comprising at least one positive pattern record of the at least one eye movement feature over a first time interval in which the user observes the graphic content on the display screen with an intent to initiate the action;
storing, in a user-intent training set database, the training set of data;
learning a classifier for the action from the training set of data;
invoking the classifier using a record of the at least one eye movement feature over a second time interval in which the user observes the graphic content of the display;
inferring an intent of the user to initiate the action as a function of the output of the classifier;
and
automatically initiating the action in response to inferring that the intent of the user is to initiate the action.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for inferring user intent based on eye movement during observation of a display screen

Life of this patent

System and method for inferring user intent based on eye movement during observation of a display screen

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims23