What are you looking at? Research examines television viewing.

• Author: Hromadka, Erik
• Position: MEDIA & MARKETING

WHEN YOU WATCH TELEVISION, WHAT exactly are you looking at? That rather obvious question becomes less clear when it's broken down into pixels and fractions of a second.

Mike Bloxham admits that very few people have an interest in considering their television viewing habits in such a manner. However, he's found a home for this research at Ball State University's Center for Media Design where he's director of testing and assessment. The center is a stand-alone research group that works with various university departments to explore and shape the manner in which tomorrow's media will be delivered and used. It doesn't design consumer electronics products, but rather how they affect human behavior.

In the past year, the center has created a new experiment that uses an eye-tracking device placed on a user's head to follow every movement as images flash on a television placed 10 feet away. Those movements are then recorded on a computer that shows exactly where the person was looking and for how long.

For example, a football game on television includes much more than just the action on the field. There are scores posted in a corner of the screen, statistics that scroll across the bottom and dozens of special effects that show everything from player trivia to promotions for upcoming shows.

Amid such a frenzy of images, researchers track eye movements every .17 seconds and consider two seconds of looking at the same spot a fixation. By logging that data, which can add up to more than 10,000 eye movements in 30 minutes, Bloxham hopes to figure out exactly what grabs the attention of viewers.

"There's nobody else, anywhere, doing this type of research," says Bloxham, who moved to Indiana from England to conduct such experiments as director of testing and assessment at the center.

The research has its roots in the university's courses in interactive television news design, a combination of instruction in journalism and graphic design. With the advent of interactive television, there is a growing demand for people who can create an interface that serves both to deliver information and also to capture feedback. Ball State is rapidly developing a reputation as a good place to learn such new communications skills.

Americans spend some 240 minutes each day with the television on. However, while other studies have tracked the way people read newspapers, magazines and web sites, Bloxham says there's virtually no research on where people look when they watch...