Studies of the way eyes move when the person is doing various watching tasks--especially watching television.

A friend of mine did post-graduate work in this area on contract for the Children's Television Workshop while at the University of Toronto.

One night, when we were feeling pretty good, he tried to show me how it worked. Up in his lab, at the Ontario Insitiute for Studies in Education he attempted to hook me up. This involved a harness over my head so that a narrow beam of light could shine on the center of my eye--the foevia. It didn't hurt. It couldn't even be felt.

In front of the test subject, there were images. To begin with, stills. As it was designed for children, the pictures he had, were of Spiderman, from the comic. Also in front of the test subject was a videocam, arranged to catch the dot of light cast by the moving eye as the eye roamed about the image.

Later, of course, they were able to use television, especially Sesame Street.

It didn't work on me, sadly, because I wear glasses.

But the work was sophisticated. He did a home video in the basement of our Co-op house, Fenwick House, with big bird, and other Sesame Street characters, played by me, and other housemates.

Seriously, though, the work showed where children's eyes moved when searching the TV screen, when they were trying to figure things out, when they were just relaxing, waiting for the next image.

This is quite insidious, in my view, television images can now be created that cannot be ignored.

Not only can this horse be lead to water, it can be made to drink.

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