A superhero named Akira uses eye-tracking to defeat his nemesis.

Content warning

• Violence
• Murder

The short story

Akira had always wanted to be like the heroes of his childhood.

The superpower he was born with seemed tailor-made for that. With his eyes, he could generate and perceive electromagnetic waves — far beyond the visible human spectrum. He could see infrared and ultraviolet light, detect things hidden from others, and focus the energy from his eyes into destructive laser beams.

But as extraordinary as his ability was — in Akira’s world, no one was ordinary.

Everyone possessed a superpower. Some used theirs in everyday life: super strength on construction sites, teleportation in logistics, or heat-emitting hands in restaurant kitchens. Others fought crime as heroes. Because where there is light, there is also shadow.

And the greatest shadow went by the name of Zuka.

No one knew what Zuka’s superpower was.

From the outside, he seemed completely unremarkable: dark hair, brown eyes, slender build, just under 1.70 meters tall. Akira could have easily overpowered him in an open fight.

But it never came to that. Zuka was always one step ahead of him. Every plan seemed to have been prepared in advance, every escape meticulously organized. As if he could calculate several moves ahead.

Akira suspected that this was precisely where his ability lay: Zuka was no fighter. He was a strategist. And he used this talent to murder people and make every crime look like a tragic accident.

He had to be stopped. But how do you defeat someone whose next move is always perfectly planned? The easiest way would have been to read his mind. But Akira didn’t possess that ability. And he didn’t know anyone who did. So there had to be another way. Akira had to get creative.

At the library, he began researching how light was used in science and technology. In the process, he came across a technology called eye-tracking. The principle was surprisingly simple: invisible infrared light is directed at the eye. The eyes reflect the light, sensors detect the reflections, and from these, they calculate exactly where a person is looking, how long they have been looking at something, and in what order. But something else was even more exciting: From these gaze patterns, researchers could draw conclusions about attention and thought processes.

Generating and perceiving infrared light was a piece of cake for Akira. The real question was: Could he use it to find out what Zuka was thinking? He began to experiment. For days, he practiced directing stable infrared beams at the eyes of strangers and analyzing the tiny reflections. No one noticed a thing. Infrared light was invisible and completely inconspicuous. Soon he recognized a pattern. People often looked at things they were thinking about at that moment. And they kept their gaze fixed on them for exactly as long as the thought lasted.

That could be it. But there was no time for further experiments. Zuka had prepared his next attack. Akira’s heightened senses revealed his location: beneath the tracks of a magnetic levitation train. Even worse: Zuka was carrying an EMP bomb. An electromagnetic pulse would not only paralyze all the train’s electronics and cause an accident. It would also severely disrupt Akira’s own powers and inflict life-threatening injuries on him.

Nevertheless, he didn’t hesitate for a second and started to run. “Stop!”

Zuka turned around. As always, he was wearing a shiny silver, light-reflecting combat suit. Slowly, he opened his helmet and smiled. “You’re too late. The bomb’s already been planted.”

In front of him stood a small control panel with five buttons: Red. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. Next to it lay a sealed envelope.

“Here’s your riddle”, Zuka said with a grin. “The answer is a color. If you press the right button, the bomb will be defused. If you press the wrong one…” He spread his arms wide. “…then it’ll go BOOM.” He laughed. “Of course, you can try to stop me. But you don’t have enough time for that. It’s either me — or the people on the train.”

Akira’s heart was racing. Letting people die was out of the question. Then he remembered: eye-tracking. He discreetly directed fine infrared beams at Zuka’s eyes.

“All right”, Akira said slowly. “So the solution is a color…”

“Yes!” Zuka snapped irritably — he hated having to repeat himself. “Only the button with that specific color defuses the bomb.”

In that very moment, it happened. For a split second, Zuka looked at the purple button.

Akira smiled. A cold, confident smile. Zuka froze.

“Why does he suddenly look like that? Did I make a mistake?” He’d never seen Akira like this before. He hastily pushed down his helmet and ran. It was too late. Akira was faster. With full force, he knocked Zuka to the ground and wrenched the helmet off his head.

“Your eyes betray you, asshole!” His pupils began to glow. Slowly, the wavelength of his radiation shifted. From harmless infrared through visible light and deep into the ultraviolet spectrum. The high-energy UV radiation burned Zuka’s retina in an instant. He would never be able to kill anyone again.

Akira jumped up and ran back to the control panel. He still didn’t know if his theory was really correct. Whether scientists could actually describe thoughts so reliably using eye-tracking. He took a deep breath. Then he pressed the purple button.

Then it happened: nothing. Seconds later, the magnetic levitation train floated unscathed over that section of the tracks.

The End.

This story was originally written in German and translated to English by Helena Hartmann using DeepL. It was written without any help of AI, but AI was used ton polish it afterwards.

The study

Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87(4), 329–354. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.87.4.329

Connection between story and study

The idea behind Akira’s trick isn’t made up. In fact, it’s based on one of the most influential concepts in eye-tracking research.

Today, eye-tracking is used in numerous disciplines — including marketing, reading research, psychology, and educational research. As a non-invasive method, it allows researchers to draw conclusions about cognitive processes based on eye movements. However, it was not always clear that eye movements are so closely linked to our thinking.

About 50 years ago, the two researchers Just and Carpenter set a decisive milestone. In their study, they wanted to explain the distribution of students’ fixations while reading scientific texts and formulated two assumptions that continue to shape eye-tracking research to this day. The immediacy assumption states that readers do not unnecessarily delay processing information but process it as immediately as possible. The eye-mind assumption goes one step further: the eye remains fixed on a word for as long as it is being cognitively processed.

At that time, these assumptions applied exclusively to reading. Today we know that they extend far beyond that. Eye movements reflect cognitive processes in many other situations as well — for example when looking at pictures, solving problems, or making decisions. Akira’s strategy is based precisely on this idea: When Zuka explains that only one of the five buttons defuses the bomb, a tiny, unconscious glance reveals what he is thinking about at that moment.

The author

Dr. Axel Langner is a science communicator, education researcher, lecturer, and content creator. For more information, visit www.axel-langner.de.