The Use of Eyetracking for Measuring Immersion

Games arguably have the most impressive success of any computer-based application and it would be useful to be able to extract some of the successful features of games for use in different application areas. Whilst games are clearly a multi-faceted phenomenon, when talking about games, gamers and reviewers often refer to the immersive experience of the game as being of particular importance. Moreover, the term immersion can be applied across many different genres of games from first person shooters, to strategy games and simulations. However, whilst many people use the term immersion, it is not clear exactly what this term means or whether the experience of immersion is the same across different games. Earlier qualitative studies (Brown & Cairns, 2004) showed that immersion can be better understood as a scale of experience with lower levels of immersion leading to higher levels. The purpose of our current work is to consider if it is possible to quantify the experience of immersion through more objective measures of the cognition of an immersed person such as eyemovements.