{"id":20700,"date":"2017-12-21T10:34:01","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T17:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=20700"},"modified":"2017-12-21T10:34:01","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T17:34:01","slug":"rock-climbers-don-high-tech-glasses-for-msub-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/12\/rock-climbers-don-high-tech-glasses-for-msub-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock climbers don high-tech glasses for MSUB research"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wall\"<\/a>

Eric Brown\/MSU Billings<\/p>

MSU Billings Professor Clinton Culp observes video from cameras mounted on eye-tracking glasses worn by a research participant who was climbing MSUB\u2019s rock wall.<\/p><\/div>\n

Two professors in the College of Allied Health Professionals at Montana State University Billings are conducting a research project using eye-tracking glasses, the university\u2019s rock wall and a dozen student-participants.<\/p>\n

Clinton Culp, an Outdoor Adventure Leadership assistant professor, and Alex Shafer,\u00a0a Health and Human Performance assistant professor, who have offices a few steps apart in the campus\u2019 physical education building, began working on this project over the summer. By the end of summer 2018, they hope to have a research paper ready for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got enough data for at least three different papers,\u201d Culp said.<\/p>\n

The two are gathering data from 12 participants, who wear eye-tracking glasses and a heart-rate monitor while climbing the 20-foot-high rock wall. Shafer\u2019s focus is the participants\u2019 physiological information, such as maximum oxygen consumption during exertion, while Culp is in charge of psychometric markers, which he said include \u201cattentional control, emotional regulation and how those things tend to relate to the physiological markers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Glasses\"<\/a>

Eric Brown\/MSU Billings<\/p>

Culp models a pair of the Tobii eye-tracking glasses worn by research participants.<\/p><\/div>\n

Six males and six females are taking part in the study, and they are further categorized as being self-reported experienced rock climbers or novice rock climbers.<\/p>\n

The key component in this research is the Tobii eye-tracking glasses, which have recently been used in the military, sports and marketing. One pair, along with the analyzing software, costs about $17,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are employing eye-tracking technology that allows us to see part of the decision-making process,\u201d Shafer said. \u201cWe can see where they are looking before they make a move.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each participant climbed the rock wall while wearing the glasses, which transmitted the data to a computer where it can be viewed and recorded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe glasses have a wide-angle camera that faces out; inside the glasses there is a little gray frame that has two cameras focused on each eye and looking at the retina,\u201d Culp said. \u201cOnce it\u2019s calibrated, the computer is able to track the retinas\u2019 movements and overlays a red circle on the outward-facing image that\u2019s being recorded at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

This technology allows the researchers to observe what a climber is looking at, and for how long, while ascending the wall. This information will be used in conjunction with physiological and psychological data collected on each participant and correlated with levels of climbing experience to produce a picture illustrating important differences between experienced and new climbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tracks eye movement and that directly relates to attentional control and what cues experts pay attention to versus the cues that novices pay attention to,\u201d Culp said.<\/p>\n

The results of this study should be of interest to professionals across a range of fields, including outdoor recreation, motor learning and exercise physiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to be able to look for ways to increase the states and traits of a novice decision maker and allow them to figure out how to pay attention to relevant cues faster, so they can decrease the time it takes to become an expert,\u201d Culp said.

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two professors in the College of Allied Health Professionals at Montana State University Billings are conducting a research project using eye-tracking glasses, the university\u2019s rock wall and a dozen student-participants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":20701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[6572,6571,6570,2748,6569],"class_list":["post-20700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-alex-shafer","tag-clinton-culp","tag-health-and-human-performance","tag-msu-billings","tag-outdoor-adventure-leadership","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20700"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20705,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20700\/revisions\/20705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}