How coherent is gaze on professionally cut footage compared with natural video, and what does the upper limit look like (Dorr et al. 2010)?

Problem: how much agreement between viewers should a designer expect when guiding attention? Conditions: free viewing without a task. Method (as reported in the abstract): eye movements from 54 subjects on 18 high-resolution outdoor videos, variability measured with Normalized Scanpath Saliency extended over time; controls were stop-motion versions of the same content, Hollywood action trailers (probing the upper limit of coherence from deliberate camera work and cuts), and a repetition condition (same movies ten times over two days). Result: up to about 80% of subjects looked at the same region in some segments but variability was usually much greater; gaze on Hollywood trailers was significantly more coherent than on natural movies; static images show onset effects early and idiosyncrasy later. Mapping to AI shot design (inference): synchrony is not a property of 'video' but of composed, cut footage; uncut, wide, AI-generated establishing shots with many equal-salience elements will have diffuse gaze, so artefacts anywhere in them can be noticed by some viewers; tight, motion-led cuts concentrate attention. Failure modes: do not quote a single percentage as typical. Limitations: only the abstract/record page was fetched (full text not read); 2010 stimuli (outdoor, no narrative); trailers are action genre. Version/date: J Vision 10(10), 2010; fetched 2026-10-23. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Limitations: Abstract-level evidence only; the full methods, effect sizes and scanpath statistics were not read. Applicability to AI footage is inference. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

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  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://research.uni-luebeck.de/en/publications/variability-of-eye-movements-when-viewing-dynamic-natural-scenes/",
      "note": "Abstract; Abstract"
    }
  ]
}