Tobii launches TX300 Eye Tracker for linguistics and behavioral research

Tobii Technology, the global market leader in eye tracking, announced today its new Tobii TX300™ Eye Tracker. The TX300 is the first higher-frequency eye-tracking hardware that allows research subjects the freedom of head movement, which helps scientists create more realistic testing environments for detailed and efficient research of natural behavior and higher definition samplings at 300 hertz.

“We believe the Tobii TX300 will give researchers a tool that will dramatically and positively impact the field of linguistics and behavioral research”

"My lab has just started to use the Tobii TX300 Eye Tracker, and we think that the non-intrusive design and increased sample frequency will enable us to retrieve more data, making it easier for us to study language processing and attentional biases in adult populations," said Dr. Heather Ferguson, lecturer in psychology at the University of Kent in the U.K. "The user-friendliness of Tobii Studio makes it easy to get students started with eye tracking and helps them actually see their experimental effects in action!"

The new Tobii TX300 is designed for studies that require higher data frequency. For example, the new product makes it possible to eye movements such as blinks, pupil size changes, short fixations, saccades and many others without requiring participants to hold their heads still by using headrests.

"We have just started to use Tobii TX300 and we think it will be a suitable tool for reading studies with children, as this eye tracker is tolerant of large head movements and works at high speed," said Maggie Woodhouse, senior lecturer at the School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, Cardiff University, in Wales.

Specific areas of study that will benefit greatly from this new technology include:

• Neuroscience studies, especially those combining eye tracking and EEG data
• Psychology studies, especially developmental psychology and psycholinguistics
• Reading studies
• Children and infant studies
• Ophthalmology studies

"A normal person's eyes move quite a bit, even during periods of concentration. This has always made it more difficult for scientists and researchers to gather viable samples at high speeds in normal settings," said Tom Englund, executive vice president of Analysis Solutions, Tobii Technology AB. "With our Tobii TX300, this barrier is now removed. Our hope is that this technology will give scientists a more powerful tool for behavioral research as well as for the studies of eye movements. With the TX300, scientists will be able to realize new types of research."

Expected to be available in early 2011, the Tobii TX300 includes an eye-tracking unit and a monitor, and offers both on-screen and real-world stimuli setup options. The setup is easy to change, giving users more flexibility and variety in the research scenarios they configure. For example, the eye-tracker can be used with a screen in one study and then be used as a standalone eye tracker to project stimuli on any flat surface in the next. It is compatible with a range of applications that build on the Tobii Software Development Kit®, such as the Tobii Studio® version 2.2 or later, the Tobii Eye Tracker Extension for Presentation®, Tobii Toolbox for MATLAB® and others.

"We believe the Tobii TX300 will give researchers a tool that will dramatically and positively impact the field of linguistics and behavioral research," said Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii North America. "The unique benefit for researchers of having a tool that works with a wide range of applications will mean that it's easier to add this new tool to whatever research toolkit they are already working with, without additional software investments."