Characterizing Personality from Eye-Tracking: The Role of Gaze and Its Absence in Interactive Search Environments

Abstract

Personality traits influence how individuals engage, behave, and make decisions during the information-seeking process. However, few studies have linked personality to observable search behaviors. This study aims to characterize personality traits through a multimodal time-series model that integrates eye-tracking data and gaze missingness-periods when the user's gaze is not captured. This approach is based on the idea that people often look away when they think, signaling disengagement or reflection. We conducted a user study with 25 participants, who used an interactive application on an iPad, allowing them to engage with digital artifacts from a museum. We rely on raw gaze data from an ey..