Augmented Reality vs. Virtual Reality Mirrors and Gaze Behavior: Exploring Body Image Perception

Open Human-Computer Interaction Master Project Thesis Internship No Affiliation

Motivation

Mirror exposures, in which patients look at their own reflection in order to gain a neutral judgement of their body, are a common method in the treatment of eating and body image disorders (Griffen et al., 2018). Augmented reality (AR) offers a great opportunity to change the representation of one’s own body or to place a further level of abstraction between the appearance and interpretation of one’s own body. Research has shown that people with body image disorders focus their gaze on different parts of the body than people without the disorder (Tuschen-Caffier et al., 2015). But how does this focus change, when they see their virtual reflection in an AR mirror instead of a physical one? And how can we capture their gaze in an uncontrolled environment where they and their target are moving constantly?

Goal

The aim of this project is to

• (further) develop a tool to analyze eye tracking data in mirror exposure scenarios with moving body parts (Döllinger et al., 2022)
• investigate whether AR changes the experience of the mirror image, the gaze behavior during exposure and to what extent this affects the user’s body image and self-perception.
  

Tasks

• Development and implementation of an eyetracking data analysis algorithm that can be flexibly adapted to different software
• Evaluation of the algorithm based on existing eye tracking data in a non-AR mirror exposure scenario
• Research of relevant preliminary work
• Elaboration of a study design to test the effect of AR on gaze behavior
• Study implementation and conduction
• Evaluation and presentation of results
  The work can be carried out as a joint project for two students or as a combined Master’s project and Master’s thesis.

Prerequisits

• Experience with Unity game engine
• Experience and/or interest in Eyetracking Data analysis
• Interest in combining technical development with empirical work
• Basic knowledge of research methods and statistics

Literature

1. Döllinger, N., Göttfert, C., Wolf, E., Mal, D., Latoschik, M. E., and Wienrich, C. (2022). Analyzing Eye Tracking Data in Mirror Exposure. In 2022 Conference on Mensch und Computer, p. 513–517. doi:10.1145/3543758.3547567
2. Griffen, T. C., Naumann, E., and Hildebrandt, T. (2018). Mirror exposure therapy for body image disturbances and eating disorders: A review. Clinical Psychology Review 65, 163–174. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2018.08.006
3. Tuschen-Caffier, B., Bender, C., Caffier, D., Klenner, K., Braks, K., and Svaldi, J. (2015). Selective visual attention during mirror exposure in anorexia and bulimia nervosa. PLOS one 10, 12 (2015), e0145886. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145886

Contact Persons at the University Würzburg