FAQ: How can I make individual Interest Areas for text trials in my experiment?

[SR-SUPPORT]

For reading analysis, you need to define an Interest Area (IA) for each word. Data Viewer offers several ways to accomplish this.

Method 1: Automatic Creation with Experiment Builder
If you used Experiment Builder for stimulus presentation, it can automatically generate precise, word-level Interest Areas for you. This is the easiest and most reliable method.

Method 2: Auto-Segmentation in Data Viewer
If you used other presentation software, you can use Data Viewer's built-in auto-segmentation tool.

• To use it: Click the Auto Segment Image into Interest Areas button on the toolbar.
  
• This feature analyzes the stimulus image and attempts to create IAs based on visual cues like whitespace between words.
  

Note: Results can vary depending on fonts, punctuation, and spacing. Some IAs may contain multiple words or be split incorrectly. You can adjust the tool's parameters in Edit > Preferences > Data Views > Overlay > Image Segmentation. Details are also discussed in Section 8.9 of the Data Viewer User Manual on preference settings for Image Segmentation.

Method 3: Manual Adjustments (Splitting & Merging)
If an automatic method produces errors, you can easily correct the Interest Areas manually.

• To combine areas: Select multiple Interest Areas, right-click, and choose Merge.
  
• To divide an area: Select a single Interest Area that contains multiple words, right-click, and choose Split.