The present study introduces a covert eye-tracking procedure as an innovative approach to investigate the adequacy of research paradigms used in psychology. In light of the ongoing debate regarding ego depletion, the frequently used “attention-control video task” was chosen to illustrate the method. Most participants did not guess that their eyes had been monitored, but some participants had to be excluded due to poor tracking ratio. The eye-tracking data revealed that the attention-control instructions had a significant impact on the number of fixations, revisits, fixation durations, and proportion of long fixation durations on the AOIs (all BF₁₀ > 18.2). However, number of fixations and proportions of long fixation durations did not mediate cognitive performance. The results illustrate the promise of covert eye-tracking methodology to assess task compliance, as well as adding to the current discussion regarding whether the difficulties of replicating “ego depletion” may be in part due to poor task compliance in the video task.

本研究介绍了一种隐蔽的眼动追踪程序，作为一种创新方法来调查心理学中使用的研究范式的充分性。鉴于关于自我消耗的持续争论，选择了经常使用的“注意力控制视频任务”来说明该方法。大多数参与者没有猜到他们的眼睛被监控了，但由于跟踪率差，一些参与者不得不被排除在外。眼动追踪数据显示，注意力控制指令对注视次数、重访次数、注视持续时间和 AOI 上长注视持续时间的比例有显着影响（所有 BF ₁₀ > 18.2)。然而，注视的数量和长注视持续时间的比例并没有调节认知表现。结果说明了隐蔽眼动追踪方法在评估任务依从性方面的前景，并增加了当前关于复制“自我消耗”的困难是否可能部分归因于视频任务中的任务依从性差的讨论。