Models Of Eye Movement Control Research Articles

한국 프랑스어 전공 대학학습자의 프랑스어 인터넷 신문기사의 장르파악을 위한 읽기 활동 고찰

Objectives This study aimed to investigate the communicative competence and reading strategies employed by Korean university learners majoring in French in actual reading activities, with the overarching goal of enhancing communicative competence through reading education.
 Methods To achieve this, the study focused on reading activities related to genre identification in French online newspaper articles. Ten Korean university students majoring in French and six native speakers participated in the reading experiment. The study utilized an eye-tracker and specifically analyzed fixation times (gaze duration, re-reading, and total reading time) required when reading words of the section and words indicating publication dates, based on information obtained from interviews.
 Results Participants, driven by the reading goal of genre identification, selectively identified and integrated spatially dispersed words and phrases in the text, understanding the genre through their different interactions. Fixation times required to read words of the section and words indicating publication dates revealed differences between native speakers and Korean participants. In the case of native readers, who were considered experienced readers, fixation times were longer for words of the section, regardless of syllabic length, referential competence, or reading path. On the other hand, for Korean participants who were considered inexperienced readers in French reading, fixation times were influenced by syllabic length, comprehension, and reading path.
 Conclusions The study highlighted that participants utilized communicative competence and selection strategies in reading activities aimed at genre identification. However, differences in reading aspects between the two groups indicated a particular deficiency in discourse competence among Korean participants in terms of communicative competence. In response, a pedagogical strategy that combines the teaching method ‘global approach to written texts' and Findlay and Walker's theory, an eye movement control model, was proposed. The research confirmed that understanding reading activity aspects is a meaningful approach to examining the (foreign language) communicative competence used by learners. It also emphasized the need for active reading that goes beyond relying solely on text, considering the characteristics of (non)linguistic elements provided by the text.

The function/content word distinction and eye movements in reading.

A substantial quantity of research has explored whether readers' eye movements are sensitive to the distinction between function and content words. No clear answer has emerged, in part due to the difficulty of accounting for differences in length, frequency, and predictability between the words in the two classes. Based on evidence that readers differentially overlook function word errors, we hypothesized that function words may be more frequently skipped or may receive shorter fixations. We present two very large-scale eyetracking experiments using selected sentences from a corpus of natural text, with each sentence containing a target function or content word. The target words in the two classes were carefully matched on length, frequency, and predictability, with the latter variable operationalized in terms of next-word probability obtained from the large language model GPT-2. While the experiments replicated a range of expected effects, word class did not have any clear influence on target word skipping probability, and there was some evidence for a content word advantage in fixation duration measures. These results indicate that readers' tendency to overlook function word errors is not due to reduced time spent encoding these words. The results also broadly support the implicit assumption in prominent models of eye movement control in reading that a word's syntactic category does not play an important role in decisions about when and where to move the eyes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Examining semantic parafoveal-on-foveal effects using a Stroop boundary paradigm

The issue of whether lexical processing occurs serially or in parallel has been a central and contentious issue in respect of models of eye movement control in reading for well over a decade. A critical question in this regard concerns whether lexical parafoveal-on-foveal effects exist in reading. Because Chinese is an unspaced and densely packed language, readers may process parafoveal words to a greater extent than they do in spaced alphabetic languages. In two experiments using a novel Stroop boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975), participants read sentences containing a single-character color-word whose preview was manipulated (identity or pseudocharacter, printed in black [no-color], or in a color congruent or incongruent with the character meaning). Two boundaries were used, one positioned two characters before the target and one immediately to the left of the target. The previews changed from black to color and then back to black as the eyes crossed the first and then the second boundary respectively. In Experiment 1 four color-words (red, green, yellow and blue) were used and in Experiment 2 only red and green color-words were used as targets. Both experiments showed very similar patterns such that reading times were increased for colored compared to no-color previews indicating a parafoveal visual interference effect. Most importantly, however, there were no robust interactive effects. Preview effects were comparable for congruent and incongruent color previews at the pretarget region when the data were combined from both experiments. These results favour serial processing accounts and indicate that even under very favourable experimental conditions, lexical semantic parafoveal-on-foveal effects are minimal.

Eye movement pattern of reading Chinese Classics

Abstract This article explores the use of eye movement technology in studying the reading pattern of Chinese classical text. Written in a character-based ancient language, Classical Chinese or wenyanwen, the Chinese classics are known to be difficult to apprehend for most contemporary readers. In this study, a new character-oriented eye movement technology, Region of Interest in Reading (ROIR), was invented to detect readers’ attention allocation in reading. Based on ROIRs, first fixation duration, gaze duration, and total fixation duration were formulated to discuss readers’ cognitive processes and reading patterns when reading Classical Chinese text. The empirical study was conducted using Tao Te Ching (道德经) as the reading material. The study provides foundational technology for the construction of Chinese-oriented eye movement control model, and the findings also shed light on the teaching of Chinese Classics.

A dynamic adjustment model of saccade lengths in reading for word-spaced orthographies: evidence from simulations and invisible boundary experiments

ABSTRACT Contemporary models of eye movement control in reading assume a discrete target word selection process preceding saccade length computation, while the selection itself is assumed to be driven by word identification processes. However, a potentially more parsimonious, dynamic adjustment view allows both next word length and its content (e.g. orthographic) to modulate saccade length in a continuous manner. Based on a recently proposed center-based saccade length account a new regression model of forward saccade length is introduced and validated in a simulation study. Further, additional simulations and gaze-contingent invisible boundary experiments were used to study the cognitive mechanisms underlying skipping. Overall, the results support the plausibility of dynamic adjustment of saccade length in word-spaced orthographies. In the future, the present regression formula-based computational model will allow a straightforward implementation of influences of current and next word content (visual, orthographic, or contextual) on saccade length computation.

Words from the wizarding world: Fictional words, context, and domain knowledge.

The influence of domain knowledge on reading behavior has received limited investigation compared to the influence of, for example, context and/or word frequency. The current study tested participants with and without domain knowledge of the Harry Potter (HP) universe. Fans and non-fans read sentences containing HP, high-frequency (HF), or low-frequency target-words. Targets were presented in contexts that were supportive or unsupportive within a 2 (group: fans, non-fans) × 3 (context: HP, HF, LF) × 3 (word type: HP, HF, LF) mixed design. Thirty-two fans and 22 non-fans read 72 two-sentence experimental items while eye-movement behavior was recorded: Initial sentences established context; second sentences contained target-words. Fans processed HP words faster than non-fans. No group difference was observed on HF or LF processing durations, suggesting equivalent reading capabilities. In HP contexts, HP and LF targets were processed equivalently. Processing of HF and LF words was facilitated by their supportive context as expected. Non-fans made more regressions into the target region in HP contexts and regressed more into HP targets than other targets; fans regressed into target word regions equivalently across all context and word types. Results suggest that domain knowledge influences early but not immediate lexical access, while the processing effect of novelty was seen in regressive eye movements. These results are more supportive of modular accounts of linguistic processing and serial models of eye movement control. Words without grounding in reality, or true embodiment, were integrated into fans' mental lexicons. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The lexical access of multiple words during a single fixation: overlapping access processes?

ABSTRACT Since it has become increasingly difficult to tease apart the predictions of serial and parallel models of eye movement control during reading, we return to the underlying theoretical question of whether parallel lexical processing of two words is, at the very least, psychologically plausible. Two horizontally aligned letter strings were presented simultaneously on a screen, the task being to decide whether they were physically identical or not. Even with presentation durations short enough to prohibit serial inspection of each word, the results show clear lexical effects: high frequency word pairs were responded to faster and with fewer errors than low frequency words. Effects of lexicality, orthography and scanning direction were also found. The results suggest that two words can be processed at a lexical level in an overlapping fashion.

Capitalization interacts with syntactic complexity.

We investigated whether readers use the low-level cue of proper noun capitalization in the parafovea to infer syntactic category, and whether this results in an early update of the representation of a sentence's syntactic structure. Participants read sentences containing either a subject relative or object relative clause, in which the relative clause's overt argument was a proper noun (e.g., The tall lanky guard who alerted Charlie/Charlie alerted to the danger was young) across three experiments. In Experiment 1 these sentences were presented in normal sentence casing or entirely in upper case. In Experiment 2 participants received either valid or invalid parafoveal previews of the relative clause. In Experiment 3 participants viewed relative clauses in only normal conditions. We hypothesized that we would observe relative clause effects (i.e., inflated fixation times for object relative clauses) while readers were still fixated on the word who, if readers use capitalization to infer a parafoveal word's syntactic class. This would constitute a syntactic parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Furthermore, we hypothesized that this effect should be influenced by sentence casing in Experiment 1 (with no cue for syntactic category being available in upper case sentences) but not by parafoveal preview validity of the target words. We observed syntactic parafoveal-on-foveal effects in Experiment 1 and 3, and a Bayesian analysis of the combined data from all three experiments. These effects seemed to be influenced more by noun capitalization than lexical processing. We discuss our findings in relation to models of eye movement control and sentence processing theories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Eye Movements of Developing Chinese Readers: Effects of Word Frequency and Predictability

ABSTRACT The frequency and contextual predictability of words have a fundamental role in determining where and when the eyes move during reading in both alphabetic and non-alphabetic languages. However, surprising little is known about the how the influence of these variables develops, although this is important for understanding how children learn to read. Accordingly, to gain insight into their use during reading development, we examined the effects of orthogonally manipulating the frequency and contextual predictability of a specific target word in sentences on the eye movements of developing Chinese readers. The findings show that both factors influence eye movement behavior associated with the early processing of words during reading, but that effects of contextual predictability are mediated by the lexical frequency of words. We consider these effects in the context of visual and linguistic demands associated with reading Chinese and in relation to current models of eye movement control during reading.

Word frequency, predictability, and return-sweep saccades: Towards the modeling of eye movements during paragraph reading.

Models of eye movement control during reading focus on the reading of single lines of text. Within these models, word frequency and predictability are important input variables which influence fixation probabilities and durations. However, a comprehensive model of eye movement control will have to account for readers' eye movements across multiline texts. Line-initial words are unlike those presented midline; they are routinely unavailable for parafoveal preprocessing. Therefore, it is unclear whether and how word frequency and predictability influence reading times on line-initial words. To address this, we present an analysis of the Provo Corpus (Luke & Christianson, 2018) followed by a novel eye-movement experiment. We conclude that word frequency and predictability impact single-fixation and gaze durations on line-initial words. We also observed that return-sweep error (undersweep-fixations) may, among several other possibilities, allow for parafoveal processing of line-initial words prior to their direct fixation. Implications for models of eye movement control during reading are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

New Perspectives on Serialism and Parallelism in Oculomotor Control During Reading: The Multi-Constituent Unit Hypothesis.

Currently there are several computational models of eye movement control that provide a good account of oculomotor behavior during reading of English and other alphabetic languages. I will provide an overview of two dominant models: E-Z Reader and SWIFT, as well as a recently proposed model: OB1-Reader. I will evaluate a critical issue of controversy among models, namely, whether words are lexically processed serially or in parallel. I will then consider reading in Chinese, a character-based, unspaced language with ambiguous word boundaries. Finally, I will evaluate the concepts of serialism and parallelism of process central to these models, and how these models might function in relation to lexical processing that is operationalized over parafoveal multi-constituent units.

Return sweeps in reading: Processing implications of undersweep-fixations

Models of eye-movement control during reading focus on reading single lines of text. However, with multiline texts, return sweeps, which bring fixation from the end of one line to the beginning of the next, occur regularly and influence ~20% of all reading fixations. Our understanding of return sweeps is still limited. One common feature of return sweeps is the prevalence of oculomotor errors. Return sweeps, often initially undershoot the start of the line. Corrective saccades then bring fixation closer to the line start. The fixation occurring between the undershoot and the corrective saccade (undersweep-fixation) has important theoretical implications for the serial nature of lexical processing during reading, as they occur on words ahead of the intended attentional target. Furthermore, since the attentional target of a return sweep will lie far outside the parafovea during the prior fixation, it cannot be lexically preprocessed during this prior fixation. We explore the implications of undersweep-fixations for ongoing processing and models of eye movements during reading by analysing two existing eye-movement data sets of multiline reading.

The influence of parafoveal preview, character transposition, and word frequency on saccadic targeting in Chinese reading.

This article reports the results of an eye-movement experiment which manipulated the frequency and parafoveal preview (i.e., nonword, transposed-character, or identical) of 2-character Chinese target words using a gaze-contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). The key findings were that progressive saccades were longer into high- than low-frequency target words, and that this word-frequency effect was more pronounced for identical than transposed previews. These findings suggest that Chinese readers adjust their saccade lengths in response to variables that influence the rate of parafoveal lexical processing. To examine the feasibility of this hypothesis, 2 computer simulations were completed that pitted this dynamic-adjustment account (Liu, Huang, Gao, & Reichle, 2017) against an account in which readers simply move their eyes to a small number of default saccade targets (e.g., the beginning or center of the upcoming word; Yan, Kliegl, Richter, Nuthmann, & Shu, 2010). The simulation results show that the dynamic-adjustment hypothesis more accurately describes our experimental findings using fewer parameters. The theoretical implications of the dynamic-adjustment account of saccadic targeting are discussed relevant to both models of eye-movement control in reading and modes of Chinese word identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Spill the load: Mixed evidence for a foveal load effect, reliable evidence for a spillover effect in eye-movement control during reading

It has been hypothesized that the processing difficulty of the fixated word (i.e., “foveal load”) modulates the amount of parafoveal preprocessing of the next word. Evidence for the hypothesis has been provided by the application of parafoveal masks within the boundary paradigm. Other studies that applied alternative means of manipulating the parafoveal preview (i.e., visual degradation) could not replicate the effect of foveal load. The present study examined the effect of foveal load by directly comparing the application of parafoveal masks (Exp. 1) with the alternative manipulation of visually degrading the parafoveal preview (Exp. 2) in adult readers. Contrary to expectation, we did not find the foveal-load interaction in the first experiment with traditional letter masks. We did, however, find the expected interaction in the second experiment with visually degraded previews. Both experiments revealed a spillover effect indicating that the processing of a word is not (always) fully completed when the reader already fixates the next word (i.e., processing “spills over” to the next word). The implications for models of eye-movement control in reading are discussed.

Stable preview difficulty effects in reading with an improved variant of the boundary paradigm.

Using gaze-contingent display changes in the boundary paradigm during sentence reading, it has recently been shown that parafoveal word-processing difficulties affect fixations on words to the right of the boundary. Current interpretations of this post-boundary preview difficulty effect range from delayed parafoveal-on-foveal effects in parallel word-processing models to forced fixations in serial word-processing models. However, these findings are based on an experimental design that, while allowing to isolate preview difficulty effects, might have established a bias with respect to asymmetries in parafoveal preview benefit for high-frequent and low-frequent target words. Here, we present a revision of this paradigm varying the preview's lexical frequency and keeping the target word constant. We found substantial effects of the preview difficulty in fixation durations after the boundary confirming that preview processing affects the oculomotor decisions not only via trans-saccadic integration of preview and target word information. An additional time-course analysis showed that the preview difficulty effect was significant across the full fixation duration distribution on the target word without any evidence on the pretarget word before the boundary. We discuss implications of the accumulating evidence of post-boundary preview difficulty effects for models of eye movement control during reading.

Visual letter similarity effects during sentence reading: Evidence from the boundary technique

The study of how the cognitive system encodes letter identities from the visual input has received much attention in models of visual word recognition but it has typically been overlooked in models of eye movement control in reading. Here we examined how visual letter similarity affects early word processing during reading using Rayner's (1975) boundary change technique in which the parafoveal preview of the target word was either identical (e.g., frito-frito [fried]) or a one-letter-different nonword (e.g., frjto-frito vs. frgto-frito). Critically, the substituted letter in the nonword was visually similar (based on letter confusability norms) or visually dissimilar. Results showed shorter viewing times on the target word when the parafoveal preview was visually similar than when it was visually dissimilar. Thus, visual letter similarity modulates the integration of parafoveal and foveal information during sentence reading. Future implementations of models of eye movement control in reading should incorporate a more developed orthographic-lexical module to capture these effects.

Influences on and consequences of parafoveal preview in reading.

During reading, information is extracted from upcoming words to the right of the currently fixated word, which facilitates recognition of those words when they are later fixated. According to the foveal load hypothesis (Henderson & Ferreira, 1990), this parafoveal preview benefit depends on how difficult the currently fixated word is to recognize. Furthermore, there is evidence that the influence of lexical variables (frequency and predictability) on word processing changes when no preview of that word is available. The present study reports two moving-window experiments in which the upcoming word to the right of fixation was either included in or excluded from the window. Through this manipulation, accurate parafoveal information was either available or not for each word in the paragraph. Two critical interactions between preview condition and lexical variables were observed. First, the word frequency at word N was found to be the primary influence on the amount of preview benefit obtained at word N+1, consistent with the foveal load hypothesis. Second, denial of preview eliminated the word predictability effect. These findings have implications for models of eye movement control in reading.

How does foveal processing difficulty affect parafoveal processing during reading?

Abstract Models of eye movement control during reading assume that the difficulty of processing word n in a sentence modulates the depth of processing of the upcoming word/s (word n + 1) in the parafovea. This foveal load hypothesis is widely accepted in the literature despite surprisingly few clear replications of the basic effect. We sought to establish whether observing a foveal load effect depends on the type of parafoveal preview used in the boundary paradigm. Participants’ eye movements were recorded in two experiments as they read sentences in which a low- or high-frequency word n—a typical manipulation of foveal load—preceded a critical target word. Prior to the reader making a saccade to word n + 1, the parafoveal preview was either identical to word n + 1; an orthographically similar word or nonword; or an unrelated word or nonword. The results revealed that the critical evidence for a foveal load effect—an interaction between word n frequency and word n + 1 preview—was limited to conditions in which the invalid preview baseline was an orthographically illegal nonword. The remaining conditions produced completely additive effects of the two factors. These findings raise questions about the mechanisms underlying the spillover of foveal processing difficulty to parafoveal words. The implications for theories of reading are discussed.

Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words.

The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants' eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

Beyond cloze probability: Parafoveal processing of semantic and syntactic information during reading

Abstract Theories of eye movement control in reading assume that early oculomotor decisions are determined by a word’s frequency and cloze probability. This assumption is challenged by evidence that readers are sensitive to the contextual plausibility of an upcoming word: First-pass fixation probability and duration are reduced when the parafoveal preview is a plausible, but unpredictable, word relative to an implausible word. The present study sought to establish whether the source of this effect is sensitivity to violations of syntactic acceptability. In two experiments, the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm was used to compare contextually plausible previews to semantically acceptable and anomalous previews that either matched or violated syntactic rules. Results showed that readers benefited from the convergence of semantic and syntactic acceptability early enough in the timecourse of reading to affect skipping. In addition, both semantic and syntactic plausibility yielded preview effects on target fixation duration measures, providing direct evidence of parafoveal syntactic processing in reading. These results highlight the limitations of relying solely on cloze probability to index contextual influences on early lexical processing. The implications of the data for models of eye movement control and language comprehension are discussed.