Individual differences in fixation duration distributions in reading

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between the location and skew of an individual reader's fixation duration distribution. The ex-Gaussian distribution was fit to eye fixation data from 153 subjects in five experiments, four previously presented and one new. The τ parameter was entirely uncorrelated with the μ and σ parameters; by contrast, there was a modest positive correlation between these parameters for lexical decision and speeded pronunciation response times. The conclusion that, for fixation durations, the degree of skew is uncorrelated with the location of the distribution's central tendency was also confirmed nonparametrically, by examining vincentile plots for subgroups of subjects. Finally, the stability of distributional parameters for a given subject was demonstrated to be relatively high. Taken together with previous findings of selective influence on the μ parameter of the fixation duration distribution, the present results suggest that in reading, the location and the skew of the fixation duration distribution may reflect functionally distinct processes. The authors speculate that the skew parameter may specifically reflect the frequency of processing disruption.