Studying the Contextual Cues Associated With Fear of Crime Through Eye Tracking Techniques

Fear of crime is a hot topic of criminological field and a problem in its own right. Researchers have been studied the individual and contextual variables of fear of crime. This project applies eye tracking techniques to deep explore the features of environment that have an impact on fear of crime. In addition, it intends to analyze the selective attention to emotional pictures in comparison with neutral ones. Using an eye tracker a set of measures were collected: probability of first fixation, total fixations number, total duration of fixations and number of dwells in each region. Contrary to the literature, individuals mostly focus their time in neutral images when comparing to emotional ones. Also, negative image captured more attention comparing to a positive picture. The prospect of environment was important to subjects as well as features such as graffiti and window bars. The results and limitations of research will be dis-