The eye-tracking monoculture in communication research: diversifying constructs, roles, and metrics

Abstract

Eye tracking can advance communication research as the technology is increasingly embedded in everyday devices. However, its growing accessibility also raises a critical question: Do communication researchers use eye tracking in ways that expand or limit the field’s ability to ask new questions, refine its concepts and measures, and explain communication phenomena? We make 3 major points. First, we document an eye-tracking monoculture through content analysis of 61 articles drawn from a review of 34 communication journals over the past 35 years. We find that an overwhelming majority (67%) of articles use eye tracking in the same 3-part configuration of measuring attention alone, using eye-tracking measures to operationalize dependent-variable constructs, and relying on fixation-duration metrics. Second, this monoculture can limit the use of eye tracking in developing new constructs, explanations, and metrics. Third, we propose a diversification framework to move beyond this monoculture. The framework encourages researchers to ask: (a) What else can eye tracking study beyond attention? (b) What other roles can eye-tracking measures play beyond dependent variables? (c) What eye-movement metric could make the relevant process visible beyond fixation duration? The framework is a strategy for opening new lines of scientific inquiry that the monoculture is unlikely to generate.