Gaze beats mouse: hands-free selection by combining gaze and emg

Facial EMG for selection is fast, easy and, combined with gaze pointing, it can provide completely hands-free interaction. In this pilot study, 5 participants performed a simple point-and-select task using mouse or gaze for pointing and a mouse button or a facial-EMG switch for selection. Gaze pointing was faster than mouse pointing, while maintaining a similar error rate. EMG and mouse-button selection had a comparable performance. From analyses of completion time, throughput and error rates, we concluded that the combination of gaze and facial EMG holds potential for outperforming the mouse.