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Hi, Cindy,
     I missed your original request but am catching the drift from the
replies that you are interested in eye tracking with respect to museum graphic
panels.   I ran an eye movement laboratory at Harvard in 1975-1990, researching how
kids and adults watch TV and how they read stories with text and pictures.
In general, people will begin a scan of non-text materials by looking at the
most animated item or the most centrally positioned item or the largest item
and then continue to scan items that have the most meaning to the viewer. So a
child might look first at your large graphic in the center of   your panel but
an adult who wants information will look first at the largest headline text.
Motivation for viewing makes a big difference in what people do with a still
display; moving visuals are more controlling of eye movement patterns.
     Marketing Research journals and marketing online forums probably present
information closest to what you want but the forums are not always accurate,
giving what people have heard rather than what the research actually shows.
Search google for eye movements and marketing.   Much of what you might find now
online is web EM research that will not be generalizable to your museum
panels.
     Most of the eye movement research appears in academic books, likely to
be found at a university library, rather than in journals.   A fun book to read
is an old one by A. L. Yarbus, Eye Movements and Vision, Plenum Press, 1967.
Barbara Flagg
Director, Multimedia Research


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