Skip to main content

Eye-tracking study reveals how and what we gawk at

eye trackingUser experience consulting firm Miratech has used eye tracking technology to tell us what may seem obvious. But the in-depth results are a little more interesting than that blanket assessment of the study.

Miratech individually tested more than 200 participants from all over the world by showing them a picture of a woman for 20 seconds. Their eye movements were tracked, revealing that while men were naturally more fixated on the woman’s chest, everyone spent the most time looking at her face—men actually spending more time here than women.

And before you go pointing fingers at such shallow behavior, take into account the fact that the women tested spent a good deal of their 20 seconds eyeing the woman’s ring. “Out of the 20 seconds spent looking at the picture, the women focused on the ring for 27-percent more time on average than the men did.”

the ringThat high average can apparently be blamed on Danish and English women. Miratech broke down the results by ethnicity, and a few of the statistics are pretty intriguing:

  • Women from England, Denmark, and Spain spent the most time looking at the ring. Spanish and English women spent the least time looking at her chest.
  • Spanish and American men spent the least time looking at her chest and the most time looking at her ring.
  • While women spent more time looking at the ring, when asked about details of the image men were more likely to mention the ring. Miratech says “this is a good illustration of the difference between what is self-reported and what is measured.”
  • Out of the women surveyed, French participants spent the most time looking at the woman’s chest.

It’s interesting to see the universal similarities into how people observe an image—everyone, regardless of gender or ethnicity, spent the most time looking at the face. But breaking it down further is pretty revealing—as is, discovering what people won’t admit to even when their eyes are being tracked (i.e., women and the ring). 

Editors' Recommendations

Molly McHugh
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Before coming to Digital Trends, Molly worked as a freelance writer, occasional photographer, and general technical lackey…
Best OLED monitor deals: Get an OLED screen from just $450
Marvel's Spider-Man running on the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8.

Shopping some of the best monitor deals is a good way to save on some extra screen real estate, but if you’re looking for something that can produce a stunning image you should turn your shopping cart toward the OLED monitors. OLED is one of the best picture technologies currently available, and it can create a lifelike image that makes interacting with games, presentations, and creative work much more immersive. The best OLED monitors can run pretty expensive, but that’s what OLED monitor deals are for. If you’re looking for superior picture quality and some ways to save, read onward for more details on the best OLED monitor deals taking place right now.
ViewSonic 15.6-inch VX1655 4K OLED portable monitor — $450, was $500

Getting into the OLED game can be both affordable and portable with the ViewSonic VX1655. It’s a 4K OLED display that’s made to function as either a laptop extension or something to pair with a tablet. It comes in at a super sharp 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 60Hz. This isn’t something you’d want to pair with a gaming PC, but it’s a great little display to keep with you if you do creative work on the run or want some extra screen real estate while working on a tablet at your desk.

Read more
Best monitor deals: Gaming, office, curved, OLED and more
Dell UltraSharp 27 4K PremierColor Monitor

Whether you prefer to work at one of the best desktop computers, the best laptops, or anything in between, an external monitor can be helpful to add some extra screen real estate. One of the best monitors can even go a long way toward reducing eye strain and creating an immersive digital or gaming experience. While high end monitors can get quite expensive, there are always some impressive monitor deals to shop, and we’ve tracked them all down. Reading onward you’ll find what we feel are the best monitor deals, whether you’re shopping for 4K monitors, gaming monitors, ultrawide monitors, or more general monitors meant for all-purpose users.
Best monitor deals

The following deals represent a best-of of the deals below. They're selected to give a mixture of prices, styles, and levels of discount. If you don't see something you like, don't worry, as the following sections will have plenty more deals for you to choose from. However, this is a highly recommended place to start:

Read more
7 best Chromebooks for 2024: the best for every budget
Close up of the Chrome logo on the top of a Chromebook.

Chromebooks might have a hard time competing with Windows laptops and MacBooks, but that doesn't mean they don't have their place. We've reviewed hundreds of laptops over the years, testing for important qualities like performance, battery life, and display quality — and we've found that Chromebooks consistently excel at performance and reliability.

You can find Chromebooks from Google, HP, Lenovo, Acer, and many others, and we've dug through them to put together this roundup of the best Chromebooks on the market. They're incredibly accessible devices, and for the right person, a Chromebook can be the best laptop in terms of value.

Read more