# Which Experimental Design is Better Suited for VQA Tasks? Eye Tracking Study on Cognitive Load, Performance, and Gaze Allocations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.04036 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04036/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 5 Apr 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [CRISP: Pre-LLM Yet Text-Driven Visual Token Pruning for Efficient LVLM Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16326/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We conducted an eye-tracking user study with 13 participants to investigate the influence of stimulus-question ordering and question modality on participants using visual question-answering (VQA) tasks. We examined cognitive load, task performance, and gaze allocations across five distinct experimental designs, aiming to identify setups that minimize the cognitive burden on participants. The collected performance and gaze data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods. Our results indicate a significant impact of stimulus-question ordering on cognitive load and task performance, as well as a noteworthy effect of question modality on task performance. These findings offer insights for the experimental design of controlled user studies in visualization research.