Author: Tiffany Ang, Class of 2025

Figure 1: A Competitive League of Legends Team in Action

Gaze movement refers to the motion of a visual focal point and is essential for understanding perceptual-cognitive processing. Fixation, a specific aspect of gaze movement, plays a crucial role in processing visual information, as the majority of the visual experience is constructed during fixation. Dr. Jeong and colleagues at The University of Tokyo aimed to investigate the influence of gaze movement in multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games, such as League of Legends (LoL). Their study examined the gaze control abilities in expert and low-skill LoL players, hypothesizing that highly skilled players, categorized as experts, would demonstrate a wider gaze distribution and shorter fixation durations compared to lower-skilled players.

Participants were divided into skill groups based on their official ranks: iron, bronze, and silver players were classified as low-skill, while gold, platinum, and diamond players were categorized as experts. All participants completed easy and moderate tasks using the same character, Master Yi, with identical items, skills, and spells. In the moderate task, the computer-controlled artificial intelligence (AI) opponent operated at a higher difficulty level, collecting gold 1.5 times faster and using skills more frequently. Gaze movement was tracked using the Pupil Labs eye tracker and recorded with Pupil-Capture software, while performance was measured by the kill-to-death ratio.

The results revealed that expert players exhibited a wider gaze distribution and shorter fixation durations than low-skill players. Both groups performed worse on the moderate task than the easy task, suggesting that less gaze movement is required at lower difficulty levels. Researchers concluded that players tend to prefer a central view over a peripheral view for information processing. A comparison of the standard deviations in gaze movement revealed that experts displayed a significantly wider horizontal gaze distribution than low-skill players. Experts also had a consistently short fixation duration, suggesting that a wide horizontal gaze distribution allows for experts to obtain information from a wider area, while a short fixation duration suggests they require less time to assess information — an advantage when processing large amounts of information in a limited time. 

The study concluded that gaze control ability plays a critical role in the superior performance of expert LoL players, facilitating rapid decision-making and precise execution of actions. Further research into gaze control could provide insights into the cognitive and perceptual skills that distinguish experts from novices. In future experiments, Dr. Jeong and colleagues plan to recruit both male and female participants to explore potential sex-based differences in gaze control during LoL, which could reveal unique strategies or biological factors influencing gameplay.  

Works Cited:

[1] Jeong I., Kudo K., Kaneko N., Nakazawa K. Esports experts have a wide gaze distribution and short gaze fixation duration: A focus on League of Legends players. PLoS One. 2024 Jan 2;19(1):e0288770. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288770. PMID: 38165975; PMCID: PMC10760684. 

[2] Image retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:League_of_Legends_All-Star_Los_Angeles_2015_Day_3_-_34.jpg