JEMR Webinar | Eye Tracking in the Age of AI: Explainability, Prediction, and Applications
the chair
This is the second of three webinars accompanying the Special Issue Eye Tracking in the Age of AI: Explainability, Prediction, and Applications, published in the Journal of Eye Movement Research.
For most of the history of visual communication, the first audience for an image was the human eye. That is no longer reliably true. Systems now stand between what is produced and what is seen, deciding which images enter a person's field of view at all. At the same time, other systems estimate how those images will perform once seen. Selection and evaluation have both moved upstream, and the human eye now arrives late in a process it used to begin.
Two questions follow, and this session takes one each.
The first concerns the gate before the gate. If a model does not recognize and shortlist an image, the human funnel may never begin, meaning visibility is decided before attention can be measured. The opening presentation (Dr. Peter Steidl) introduces the emerging discipline of Visual GEO and a two-gate view of creative work, in which an image must pass the machine gate before it can reach the human gate that eye tracking has always measured.
The second concerns what happens at that second gate. Predicted attention is fast, inexpensive and increasingly trusted, and it is being used in place of measurement rather than alongside it. The second presentation (Dr. Hedda Martina Šola) draws on two published studies in which machine prediction and human measurement were applied to the same material, and reports where the two disagreed, including one case in which an AI assistant's own design was judged and found wanting by the AI that assessed it.
Taken together, the two talks follow a single image through both gates: what determines that it is seen, and what determines that it is remembered.
This Special Issue was opened to bring exactly these questions into the literature, alongside work on robustness, benchmarking, transparency, ethics, and the generalizability of predictive models across contexts and populations. Submissions remain open until 20 November 2026, and contributions are welcome from every domain represented in this field.
Date: 16 October 2026
Time: 3:00 pm CEST | 9:00 am EDT
Webinar ID: 835 9166 8621
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Meet Our Chair
Institute for Neuromarketing and Intellectual Property;Dr. Hedda Martina Šola is Director of the Institute for Neuromarketing and Intellectual Property in Zagreb. This research institution measures and predicts consumer behavior using high-end neuroscientific technology and its own proprietary protocols. She holds a PhD in Economics with a specialization in neuromarketing. She brings more than thirty years in strategic marketing and over fifteen in consumer neuroscience, research and higher education, including Vice Dean and doctoral teaching appointments and five years at Oxford Business College. For over eleven years she has served as a registered permanent court expert in marketing and in the valuation of intellectual property rights across the European Union. She is the author of more than forty publications, the holder of numerous awards and recognitions for her work and her contribution to science, and Guest Editor of this Special Issue.
Meet Our Speakers
Dr. Peter Steidl
Neurothinking, Australia; Institute for Neuromarketing & Intellectual Property, Croatia;Dr. Peter Steidl has held academic positions with three Universities and executive positions with three of the largest global advertising networks. His consulting practice has taken him to more than 20 countries on five continents, with clients including Fortune Global 100 corporations as well as regional market leaders. In pursuing his writing hobby, he has co/authored 19 books and a multitude of articles on various business topics, including several publications dealing with aspects of neuromarketing. He is Principal of Neurothinking (Australia), Affiliate of the Institute for Neuromarketing (Croatia), and Senior Strategic Advisor to Kochstrasse Agentur für Marken (Germany).
Institute for Neuromarketing and Intellectual Property, Croatia;Dr. Hedda Martina Šola is Director of the Institute for Neuromarketing and Intellectual Property in Zagreb. This research institution measures and predicts consumer behavior using high-end neuroscientific technology and its own proprietary protocols. She holds a PhD in Economics with a specialization in neuromarketing. She brings more than thirty years in strategic marketing and over fifteen in consumer neuroscience, research and higher education, including Vice Dean and doctoral teaching appointments and five years at Oxford Business College. For over eleven years she has served as a registered permanent court expert in marketing and in the valuation of intellectual property rights across the European Union. She is the author of more than forty publications, the holder of numerous awards and recognitions for her work and her contribution to science, and Guest Editor of this Special Issue.
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MDPI;Nemanja Perovic is a Senior Deputy Managing Editor at MDPI, where he has worked since 2020, overseeing editorial and operational activities for Applied Sciences, Journal of Eye Movement Research (JEMR), and other journals. He works closely with Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, Guest Editors, and academic stakeholders to support journal development, editorial processes, and high-quality scholarly publishing. Nemanja is actively involved in research integrity, ethical publishing practices, and academic outreach, and regularly represents MDPI at international conferences, webinars, and academic meetings. He has also engaged with hundreds of researchers and academic stakeholders worldwide on scholarly publishing, editorial procedures, open access, and research ethics. He holds a Master's degree in Risk Management and a Bachelor's degree in Security Studies from the University of Belgrade.
| Speaker/Presentation | Time in CEST | Time in EDT |
| Nemanja Perovic Host Introduction |
3:00 - 3:15 pm | 9:00 - 9:15 am |
| Dr. Hedda Martina Šola Webinar Introduction |
3:15 - 3:20 pm | 9:15 - 9:20 am |
| Dr. Peter Steidl The Gatekeeper: How AI Pre-Selects What We Ever See, and the Rise of Visual GEO |
3:20 - 3:40 pm | 9:20 - 9:40 am |
| Dr. Hedda Martina Šola Two Gates: Where Machine Prediction and the Human Eye Disagree |
3:40 - 4:00 pm | 9:40 - 10:00 am |
| Q&A | 4:00 - 4:15 pm | 10:00 - 10:15 am |
| Dr. Hedda Martina Šola Closing of Webinar |
4:15 - 4:20 pm | 10:15 - 10:20 am |
This is a FREE webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.
Certificates of attendance will be delivered to those who attend the live webinar.
Can’t attend? Register anyway and we’ll let you know when the recording is available to watch.
Register for free here!
Eye Tracking in the Age of AI: Explainability, Prediction, and Applications
Guest Editors: Dr. Hedda Martina Šola, Prof. Dr. Jasenka Gajdoš Kljusurić
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 November 2026
