Help with debate at work...

Ok, the owner of the company skimmed a book on day that said (roughly) "when most people open a web page, their eyes focus on {area}" [EDIT: {area} is a location on the page (well screen), one that you can point to, not an item on a page (like a menu or such), so that you need to point your most important thing at that {area}]

(The debate has gotten so old here, I honestly forget where he said it was...)

Anyhow, the manager's point is that just because he read it in one book, does not make it the end all defining of how to make our site. (note, the boss has a track record of "i heard this works, this is what we are doing" without fully researching any other alternatives, and he is my cousin, so I know he does it)

The manager was wondering what studies/books there might be out there that give guidelines on where users focus on pages when they load, or just anything similar for the discussion.

I was wondering if anyone ot there had come across anything that we could use for a reference. Thank you in advance.

On a similar note, here is a report on how a local university an track what you look at on a page (with you at their computer, not remotely).. A little interesting:

http://www.newsnet5.com/akroncanton/14594916/detail.html

(now after you read the story, like me, you may see how hard it is for you to find the contact link they talked about in the story. It was two easy clicks away, so either they changed the site because of this story, or it says very poor things about the person in the story...)

-Greg