Mobile eye-tracking glasses capture ocular and head markers of listening effort

To extend the assessment of listening effort beyond a sound booth, we validated mobile eye-tracking glasses (Pupil Labs Neon; Pupil Labs, Berlin, Germany) by comparing them to a stationary system (Eyelink DUO; SR Research Ltd., Ottawa, Canada) in a controlled environment. We recorded eye movements, pupil size, and head movements from 26 young adults during a speech-in-noise task. When listening conditions became challenging, we observed reduced gaze dispersion and increased pupil sizes of similar magnitude from both devices, in addition to reduced head movements recorded solely by the mobile device. These findings suggest that mobile eye-trackers reliably capture listening effort, paving the path towards assessments in daily settings.