course title
A practical course on eyetracking

dates and location
Wednesdays 1315-1445, Golm campus, Haus 14, room 2.22 (sometimes also the eyetracking lab, Haus 14, room 1.17)

what this course is about
We will work through all practical and technical details of doing reading studies (focusing only on one eyetracker type, the Eyelink 1000), including data analysis. The goal is to enable students to independently carry out research using eyetracking.

prerequisites
This course is only for masters students in the sense that I can only give grades at the masters level; anyone is welcome to attend. Basic understanding of statistical data analysis. Programming ability will help but is not really necessary.
You should install python (google for python) and R (google for CRAN) on your machine. You don't need to know much about python; I will teach you a bit about R.

grading
Grading will be based on project work (70%) and class participation (30%). Class participation refers to asking good questions in class.
Final scores will be based on the following mapping described in the Studienordnung: 95-100%=1,0 (A);90-94=1,3 (A-);85-89=1,7 (B+);80-84=2,0 (B);75-79=2,3 (B-);70-74=2,7 (C+);65-69=3,0 (C);60-64=3,3 (C-);55-59=3,7 (D+);50-54=4,0 (D);45-49=5,0 (F). If a student's score falls between the cracks, it will be treated as falling in the higher bin.
Students are expected to attend class regularly. If a class is missed, the student is responsible for finding out what the assignment was, what readings were assigned, and what material was covered.


conduct in the classroom
  • Please do not engage in private conversations during class.
  • All cell phones must be switched off (except by permission from me).
  • Please do not walk into class after it starts (13:15 is the deadline to be ready for class).
  • Questions to me during class are actively encouraged.


  • rough schedule
    Please sign up on moodle to get the reading material, slides, etc. There is a textbook (pdf format), slides, code, and datasets. None of this is in the public domain so please do not distribute anything beyond the class to anyone.

    check moodle for code and data
    date topic reading presenter slides
    Oct 21 no class Rayner 2009+Chapter 1 of textbook - -
    Oct 28 Eyetracking demo (NOTE: in lab, Haus 14, 1.17) Chapter 2 Felix+Hanna none
    Nov 4 Data handling tutorial part 1 Keep reading book Shravan
    Nov 11 Data handling tutorial part 2 Keep reading book Shravan moodle
    Nov 18 Technical details of eyetracking Textbook Shravan moodle
    Nov 25 Technical details of eyetracking Textbook Titus moodle
    Dec 2 Project assignments none Shravan moodle
    Dec 9 Project assignments none Shravan moodle
    Dec 16 Review
    Jan 6 Discussion of theoretical and expt design issues handout Shravan moodle
    Jan 13 First project pilot results (Sabrina group; analyses by Shravan) R code Shravan moodle
    Jan 20 Second project pilot results (Shravan group; analyses by Shravan) R code Shravan moodle
    Jan 27 No class
    Feb 3 Third project pilot results (Juliane group; analyses by Shravan) and wrap up R code Shravan moodle
    Feb 10 No class due to Linguistic Evidence