Strategic Gaze: Attention Allocation and Transition Patterns Across Functional Areas of Interest by Gameplay Outcome
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
The authors studied how players look at different parts of a video game screen during a turn-based deck-building game. They tracked where players looked, for how long, and how their gaze moved between sections. They found that players who won paid attention to more parts of the screen and switched their gaze more strategically between important areas. This shows that how players spread and shift their attention relates to how well they do in the game.
Authors
Yufei Cao, Penny Sweetser
Abstract
Video games present players with complex, spatially distributed information across interface elements, with attention shaped by visual features and task goals. Eye tracking provides a useful method for examining player attention through gaze behaviour during gameplay. Yet empirical game research has relied on accumulated fixation measures that capture where attention is directed and how long it is maintained within regions, leaving less known about how gaze moves between regions to coordinate distributed information. We address this gap by integrating distribution-, duration-, and transition-based gaze measures across functionally organised interface regions in relation to gameplay outcomes. We conducted a within-subject study with 32 participants using a deck-building game, defining six functional Areas of Interest (AOIs) within the turn-based combat interface, spanning enemy, player, action, and auxiliary elements. We computed AOI hit, dwell time, transition probabilities, and entropy to compare gaze behaviour across outcome groups. Players in the win group showed more selective attention allocation extending to peripheral auxiliary resources, with more frequent action-oriented gaze transitions, a wider range of AOI pairs, and a more even distribution across AOIs. Within a strategic game setting, our findings show that gameplay outcomes are reflected in how players distribute, sustain, and shift visual attention across functional interface elements, offering a more comprehensive account of attention organisation in gameplay.