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Tim Halverson
Cognitive Modeling & Eye Tracking Lab
Department of Computer and Information Science
University of Oregon
335 Deschutes Hall
Eugene, OR 97403-1202

Phone: (541) 346-1124
Fax: (541) 346-5373
E-mail: thalvers@cs.uoregon.edu

I'm a Ph.D. in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Oregon. My research interests lie largely in human-computer interaction (HCI). Within the broad field of HCI, my specific interests are computational cognitive modeling and eye tracking. Computational cognitive models are computer programs that simulate some aspects of human cognition and action. Specifically, I use the EPIC cognitive architecture to build models of human-computer visual interaction. As for eye tracking, I am interested in the use of this technology for (a) informing the computational cognitive models of visual search I build, and (b) as an input device for users with disabilities, for artistic expression, or for both.

I am currently working on my dissertation, which involves the integration of computational cognitive models of visual search. Predicting visual search behavior in HCI is a challenging problem. It is important for predictive modeling of HCI to integrate the visual search strategies identified in individual models in order to predict users’ visual interaction with a variety of complex, real-world layouts. Individual research efforts have done well in developing models that predict users’ visual search behavior for a single well-defined task. Considering the large variety of visual layouts users can encounter, many visual search strategies can come into play during visual search. This dissertation investigates principles for integrating strategies of visual search. These principles will be used to integrate four models of visual search from HCI literature. Prof. Anthony Hornof is my dissertation advisor.