Apparatus for secretly recording the reading behaviour of a person
Herbert Wettig's patent (granted by the UK patent office in 1971 — GB1241156) details how to hide a television camera in a light fixture for the purpose of "secretly recording the reading behaviour of a person unbeknowst to him."
Why would someone want to do this? Apparently for marketing research.
Wettig noted that researchers had previously been doing this in specially designed test rooms. The advantage of his invention, he said, was that it was easily transportable and could be set up discreetly in many different places without arousing suspicion. I'm assuming he's talking about spying on library patrons, since libraries are the most obvious place where people spend a lot of time in public reading.
Why would someone want to do this? Apparently for marketing research.
For example, advertisements were tested in this way to discover if they were noticed at all, how much attention they attracted in comparison with other advertisements, how great the spontaneous interest in the advertisement is, how the reader's gaze moves between the various elements of the advertisement, whether he reads the text as well, how long he looks at the advertisement.
Wettig noted that researchers had previously been doing this in specially designed test rooms. The advantage of his invention, he said, was that it was easily transportable and could be set up discreetly in many different places without arousing suspicion. I'm assuming he's talking about spying on library patrons, since libraries are the most obvious place where people spend a lot of time in public reading.
Comments
An idea (not mine) from the days when eyeball tracking was in its infancy: a movie camera which is an array of cameras in one housing so the field of view, when played back, could be changed without loss of clarity. The idea was someone could shoot a movie as they normally would, but then eyeball tracking of a viewer would shift the image so what they're looking at would always be at the center of the screen. Example: most people's attention will automatically shift when a dog walks into a scene. So when a viewer is watching a couple making out and a puppy strolls in, lower left, it'll become centered until the viewer's eyes go back onto the couple. The multiple cameras would create a much larger area out of which a projected frame can be selected.
afaik, no one ever did anything with the idea, and I suspect most directors would be offended if anyone suggested a viewer might find something more interesting than what the director decided was the most important part of the scene, but I wish someone would have at least mocked it up. I think the results might have been quite revealing.
afaik, no one ever did anything with the idea, and I suspect most directors would be offended if anyone suggested a viewer might find something more interesting than what the director decided was the most important part of the scene, but I wish someone would have at least mocked it up. I think the results might have been quite revealing.
Posted by Phideaux on 10/06/22 at 10:28 AM
I think the idea was mocked up, at least the part where the viewer is looking at the puppy (or the weather girl's cleavage) while the more important scene is playing. In "Le Coeur A Ses Raisons", we often see the camera wandering over some flower vase while the couple is making out. Once, the woman even forcibly brings the focus back into her, then resumes the making out, than the camera starts wandering again, than the woman brings it back, etc.
Posted by Yudith on 10/09/22 at 01:08 PM
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Category: Patents