The last twenty years have seen the development of gaze-controlled computer interfaces for augmentative communication and other assistive technology applications. In many applications, the user needs to look at symbols on a virtual on-screen keyboard and maintain gaze to make a selection. Executive control is essential to learning to use gaze-control, affecting the uptake of the technology. Specifically, the user of a gaze-controlled interface must suppress looking for its own sake, the so-called “Midas touch” problem. In a pre-registered study (https://osf.io/2mak4), we tested whether gaze-typing performance depends on executive control and whether learning-dependent plasticity leads to improved executive control as measured using the antisaccade task. Forty-two university students were recruited as participants. After five 30-min training sessions, we found shorter antisaccade latencies in a gaze-control compared to a mouse-control group, and similar error-rates. Subjective workload ratings were also similar across groups, indicating the task in both groups was matched for difficulty. These findings suggest that executive control contributes to gaze-typing performance and leads to learning-induced plasticity.

在过去的二十年中，用于增强通信和其他辅助技术应用的注视控制计算机界面得到了发展。在许多应用程序中，用户需要查看虚拟屏幕键盘上的符号并保持注视以进行选择。执行控制对于学习使用注视控制至关重要，这会影响技术的采用。具体而言，注视控制界面的用户必须抑制寻找自己的缘故，即所谓的“ Midas触摸”问题。在一项预先注册的研究（https://osf.io/2mak4）中，我们测试了注视类型的表现是否取决于执行控制，以及依赖于学习的可塑性是否可以改善使用反扫视任务所测量的执行控制。招募了42名大学生作为参与者。经过五次30分钟的训练后，我们发现凝视控件中的抗扫视潜伏期比鼠标对照组要短，错误率也差不多。各组的主观工作量评分也相似，这表明两组中的任务在难度上都是匹配的。这些发现表明，执行控制有助于注视表现，并导致学习诱发的可塑性。