Patent ID: 7209574

Claim:
An eye tracking apparatus for detecting an eye in a plurality of pieces of image data, which are obtained in chronological order by picking up images of a face, and tracking the detected eye, comprising: a threshold storing unit for storing a threshold; a tracking area storing unit for storing a tracking area; and a controller, capable of performing operations of identifying a first area of an eye in a piece of image data; causing the tracking area storing unit to store the identified first area as the tracking area; identifying a second area of an eye in one of the pieces of image data subsequent to another of the pieces of image data obtained in chronological order, on the basis of the tracking area stored in the tracking area storing unit; calculating a correlation value between the tracking area and the second area; and comparing the calculated correlation value with the threshold stored in the threshold storing unit; wherein the tracking area storing unit stores the second area identified by the controller as the tracking area when a comparison result by the computer indicates that the correlation value is larger than the threshold.