Threats to the validity of eye-movement research in psychology
Open accessAbstract
Eyetracking research in psychology has grown exponentially over the past decades, as equipment has become cheaper and easier to use. The surge in eyetracking research has not, however, been equaled by a growth in methodological awareness, and practices that are best avoided have become commonplace. We describe nine threats to the validity of eyetracking research and provide, whenever possible, advice on how to avoid or mitigate these challenges. These threats concern both internal and external validity and relate to the design of eyetracking studies, to data preprocessing, to data analysis, and to the interpretation of eyetracking data.
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All eye-tracking sessions were conducted under stable lighting conditions with screen resolution and display scaling held constant.
“All sessions were conducted under stable lighting conditions, with the screen resolution and display scaling held constant (Carter and Luke, 2020; Orquin and Holmqvist, 2018).”
From Responsible use of generative AI in Chinese vocational education: eye-tracking evidence on source verification and immediate near-transfer across three information-seeking conditions (2026) · cites this paper as Orquin and Holmqvist, 2018
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Attentional bias towards negative stimuli in healthy individuals and the effects of trait anxiety
Veerapa, E., Grandgenevre, P., El Fayoumi, M., Vinnac, B., Haelewyn, O., Szaffarczyk, S., Vaiva, G., & D’Hondt, F. (2020) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-68490-5 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Orquin, J. L., & Holmqvist, K.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Masaryk University (CZ)
- Corresponding author
- Orquin, Jacob L.
- Venue
- Behavior Research Methods
- Published
- 2017-12-07
- Volume
- 50
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1645-1656
- ISSN
- 1554-351X (ISSN-L)
- 1554-3528
- OpenAlex
- W2771386160
- Cited by
- 280
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 11 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 22.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Behavior Research Methods (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Regensburg Publication Server (University of Regensburg) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Gaze Tracking and Assistive Technology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Visual Attention and Saliency Detection
- Keywords
- eye tracking, research validity, internal validity, generalizability, methodological issues, data preprocessing, data analysis, research design, eye movement research
- MeSH terms
- Eye Movements, Humans, Research Design, Software, Reproducibility of Results, Behavioral Research, Eye Movement Measurements
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