Burleson-Lesser Kate, Morone Flaviano, DeGuzman Paul, Parra Lucas C, Makse Hernán A
Levich Institute and Physics Department, City College of New York, New York, NY, United States of America.
Neuromatters LLC, New York, NY, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Jan 3;12(1):e0168995. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168995. eCollection 2017.
Videos and commercials produced for large audiences can elicit mixed opinions. We wondered whether this diversity is also reflected in the way individuals watch the videos. To answer this question, we presented 65 commercials with high production value to 25 individuals while recording their eye movements, and asked them to provide preference ratings for each video. We find that gaze positions for the most popular videos are highly correlated. To explain the correlations of eye movements, we model them as "interactions" between individuals. A thermodynamic analysis of these interactions shows that they approach a "critical" point such that any stronger interaction would put all viewers into lock-step and any weaker interaction would fully randomise patterns. At this critical point, groups with similar collective behaviour in viewing patterns emerge while maintaining diversity between groups. Our results suggest that popularity of videos is already evident in the way we look at them, and that we maintain diversity in viewing behaviour even as distinct patterns of groups emerge. Our results can be used to predict popularity of videos and commercials at the population level from the collective behaviour of the eye movements of a few viewers.
为广大受众制作的视频和广告可能会引发不同的意见。我们想知道这种多样性是否也体现在个人观看视频的方式上。为了回答这个问题，我们向25个人展示了65个制作精良的广告，同时记录他们的眼动情况，并要求他们对每个视频给出偏好评分。我们发现最受欢迎视频的注视位置高度相关。为了解释眼动的相关性，我们将其建模为个体之间的“互动”。对这些互动的热力学分析表明，它们接近一个“临界点”，即任何更强的互动都会使所有观众步调一致，而任何较弱的互动都会使模式完全随机化。在这个临界点，观看模式中具有相似集体行为的群体出现，同时群体之间保持多样性。我们的结果表明，视频的受欢迎程度在我们观看它们的方式中已经很明显，并且即使出现了不同的群体模式，我们在观看行为中仍保持多样性。我们的结果可用于从少数观众的眼动集体行为预测视频和广告在人群层面的受欢迎程度。
