One of the typical images of a gamer in his or her natural element is a person sitting very still and practically half-dead in front of a monitor or TV. In actuality, gamer hands, fingers and eyes, move quite fast in response to the game they are playing.
YouTuber Jon Matthis decided to put to test the gamer’s sight by tracking his eyeballs as he plays Overwatch.
“Because eye movements are so central to our neural strategy, eye trackers are a very powerful tool for the study of human sensorimotor control,” Mathis says in a Reddit post.
As seen in the video, Matthis is constantly scanning the battlefield for targets of opportunity. However, it is worth noting that his scanning range is not that wide.
Kotaku reports that this could be due to the fact that Roadhog, the hero he was using, did not require such a broad awareness of his surroundings. Roadhog has enough life points to withstand a few hits so the player can focus on catching his target with the hook.
On the other hand, the hero Ana would need broader spacial awareness as her job is to keep everyone on the team alive with her heal shots.
The video is quite an interesting glimpse at how gamers’ bodies react to the stimuli provided by playing a fast-paced game like Overwatch. Alfred Bayle/JB
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