On Mathematicians' Proof Skimming: A Reply to Inglis and Alcock

Abstract

We recently reported a study in which undergraduate students and research mathematicians were asked to read and validate purported proofs (Inglis & Alcock, 2012). In our eye-movement data, we found no evidence of the initial skimming strategy hypothesized by Weber (2008). Weber and Mejía-Ramos (2013) argued that this was due to a flawed analysis of eye-movement data and that a more fine-grained analysis led to the opposite conclusion. Here we demonstrate that this is not the case, and show that their analysis is based on an invalid assumption.