bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Word skipping as an indicator of individual reading style during literary reading
Authors: Faber Myrthe , Mak Marloes , Willems Roel
Published: February 2021

Decades of research have established that the content of language (e.g. lexical characteristics of words) predicts eye movements during reading. Here we investigate whether there exist individual differences in ‘stable’ eye movement patterns during narrative reading. We computed Euclidean distances from correlations between gaze durations time courses (word level) across 102 participants who each read three literary narratives in Dutch. The resulting distance matrices were compared between narratives using a Mantel test. The results show that correlations between the scaling matrices of different narratives are relatively weak (r ≤ .11) when missing data points are ignored. However, when including these data points as zero durations (i.e. skipped words), we found significant correlations between stories (r > .51). Word skipping was significantly positively associated with print exposure but not with self-rated attention and story-world absorption, suggesting that more experienced readers are more likely to skip words, and do so in a comparable fashion. We interpret this finding as suggesting that word skipping might be a stable individual eye movement pattern.
Following in Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss’ footsteps: A neurocognitive poetics investigation of eye movements during the reading of Baudelaire’s ‘Les Chats’
Authors: Fechino Marion , Jacobs Arthur M , Lüdtke Jana
Published: February 2021

Following Jakobson and Levi-Strauss famous analysis of Baudelaire’s poem ‘Les Chats’ (‘The Cats’), in the present study we investigated the reading of French poetry from a Neurocognitive Poetics perspective. Our study is exploratory and a first attempt in French, most previous work having been done in either German or English (e.g., Jacobs, 2015a, 2018a, b; Müller et al., 2017; Xue et al., 2019). We varied the presentation mode of the poem Les Chats (verse vs. prose form) and measured the eye movements of our readers to test the hypothesis of an interaction between presentation mode and reading behavior. We specifically focussed on rhyme scheme effects on standard eye movement parameters. Our results replicate those from previous English poetry studies in that there is a specific pattern in poetry reading with longer gaze durations and more rereading in the verse than in the prose format. Moreover, presentation mode also matters for making salient the rhyme scheme. This first study generates interesting hypotheses for further research applying quantitative narrative analysis to French poetry and developing the Neurocognitive Poetics Model of literary reading (NCPM; Jacobs, 2015a) into a cross-linguistic model of poetry reading.
Fluctuation in pupil size and spontaneous blinks reflect story transportation
Authors: Kaakinen Johanna K. , Simola Jaana
Published: February 2021

Thirty-nine participants listened to 28 neutral and horror excerpts of Stephen King short stories while constantly tracking their emotional arousal. Pupil size was measured with an Eyelink 1000+, and participants rated valence and transportation after each story. In addition to computing mean pupil size across 1-sec intervals, we extracted blink count and used detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) to obtain the scaling exponents of long-range temporal correlations (LRTCs) in pupil size time-series. Pupil size was expected to be sensitive also to emotional arousal, whereas blink count and LRTC’s were expected to reflect cognitive engagement.  The results showed that self-reported arousal increased, pupil size was overall greater, and the decreasing slope of pupil size was flatter for horror than for neutral stories. Horror stories induced higher transportation than neutral stories. High transportation was associated with a steeper increase in self-reported arousal across time, stronger LRTCs in pupil size fluctuations, and lower blink count. These results indicate that pupil size reflects emotional arousal induced by the text content, while LRTCs and blink count are sensitive to cognitive engagement associated with transportation, irrespective of the text type. The study demonstrates the utility of pupillometric measures and blink count to study literature reception.
Oculomotor fatigue and neuropsychological assessments mirror multiple sclerosis fatigue
Authors: Zangemeister Wolfgang H. , Heesen Christof , Roehr Dorit , Gold Stefan
Published: February 2021

Fatigue is a major complaint in MS. Up to now no objective assessment tools have been established which hampers any treatment approach. Previous work has indicated an association of fatigue with cognitive measures of attention. Oculomotor tests have been established in healthy individuals as a read-out of fatigue, and to some extent in MS patients. Based on these observations we compared two groups of MS patients, one with fatigue (n=28) and one without fatigue (n=21) and a group of healthy subjects (n=15) with a stand- ardised computerised measure of alertness and an oculomotor stress test.
Patients with fatigue showed highly significant changes of their saccade dynamics as defined by the Main Sequence and Phase Plane plots: They showed slowing of saccades, the characteristical fatigue double peak, and an asymmetrical phase plane. Oculomotor tests differentiated significantly between fatigue and fatigabiliy in our MS patients.
They also showed significantly worse performance in the alertness test as well as in the oculomotor task. Significantly slower reaction times were observed for tonic alertness in 2 series without a cue (p=.025 and p=.037) but not in phasic alertness with a cue (p=.24 and p=.34). Performance was influenced by disability as well as by affective state. We conclude, when controlling for disability and depression, saccadic stress tests and alertness tests could be used as an objective read-out for fatigability and fatigue in MS patients.
Pupillary and microsaccadic responses to cognitive effort and emotional arousal during complex decision making
Authors: Krejtz Krzysztof , Żurawska Justyna , Duchowski Andrew , Wichary Szymon
Published: February 2021

A large body of literature documents the sensitivity of pupil response to cognitive load (e.g., Krejtz et al. 2018) and emotional arousal (Bradley et al., 2008). Recent empirical evidence also showed that microsaccade characteristics and dynamics can be modulated by mental fatigue and cognitive load (e.g., Dalmaso et al. 2017). Very little is known about the sensitivity of microsaccadic characteristics to emotional arousal. The present paper demonstrates in a controlled experiment pupillary and microsaccadic responses to information processing during multi-attribute decision making under affective priming. Twenty-one psychology students were randomly assigned into three affective priming conditions (neutral, aversive, and erotic). Participants were tasked to make several discriminative decisions based on acquired cues. In line with the expectations, results showed microsaccadic rate inhibition and pupillary dilation depending on cognitive effort (number of acquired cues) prior to decision. These effects were moderated by affective priming. Aversive priming strengthened pupillary and microsaccadic response to information processing effort. In general, results suggest that pupillary response is more biased by affective priming than microsaccadic rate. The results are discussed in the light of neuropsychological mechanisms of pupillary and microsaccadic behavior generation.
Microsaccades during high speed continuous visual search
Authors: Martin Jacob G. , Davis Charles E. , Riesenhuber Maximilian , Thorpe Simon J.
Published: February 2021

Here, we provide an analysis of the microsaccades that occurred during continuous visual search and targeting of small faces that we pasted either into cluttered background photos or into a simple gray background.  Subjects continuously used their eyes to target singular 3-degree upright or inverted faces in changing scenes.  As soon as the participant’s gaze reached the target face, a new face was displayed in a different and random location.  Regardless of the experimental context (e.g. background scene, no background scene), or target eccentricity (from 4 to 20 degrees of visual angle), we found that the microsaccade rate dropped to near zero levels within only 12 milliseconds after stimulus onset.  There were almost never any microsaccades after stimulus onset and before the first saccade to the face.  One subject completed 118 consecutive trials without a single microsaccade.  However, in about 20% of the trials, there was a single microsaccade that occurred almost immediately after the preceding saccade’s offset.  These microsaccades were task oriented because their facial landmark targeting distributions matched those of saccades within both the upright and inverted face conditions.  Our findings show that a single feedforward pass through the visual hierarchy for each stimulus is likely all that is needed to effectuate prolonged continuous visual search.  In addition, we provide evidence that microsaccades can serve perceptual functions like correcting saccades or effectuating task-oriented goals during continuous visual search.
Torsional component of microsaccades during fixation and quick phases during optokinetic stimulation
Authors: Sadeghpour Shirin , Otero-Millan Jorge
Published: February 2021

While many studies have characterized the eye movements during visual fixation, including microsaccades, in most cases only horizontal and vertical components have been recorded and analyzed. Thus, little is known about the torsional component of microsaccades. We took advantage of a newly developed software and hardware to record eye movements around the three axes of rotation during fixation and torsional optokinetic stimulus. We found that the average amplitude of the torsional component of microsaccades during fixation was 0.34 ± 0.07 degrees with velocities following a main sequence with a slope comparable to the horizontal and vertical components. We also found the size of the torsional displacement during microsaccades was correlated with the horizontal but not the vertical component. In the presence of an optokinetic stimulus a nystagmus was induced producing a more frequent and larger torsional quick phases compared to microsaccades produced during fixation with a stationary stimulus. The torsional component and the vertical vergence component of quick phases grew larger with higher velocities. Additionally, our results validate and show the feasibility of recording torsional eye movements using video eye tracking in a desktop mounted setup.
Fixation duration and the learning process: an eye tracking study with subtitled videos
Authors: Negi Shivsevak , Mitra Ritayan
Published: February 2021

Learning is a complex phenomenon and education researchers are increasingly focussing on processes that go into it. Eye tracking has become an important tool in such research. In this paper, we focus on one of the most commonly used metrics in eye tracking, namely, fixation duration. Fixation duration has been used to study cognition and attention. However, fixation duration distributions are characteristically non-normal and heavily skewed to the right. Therefore, the use of a single average value, such as the mean fixation duration, to predict cognition and/or attention could be problematic. This is especially true in studies of complex constructs, such as learning, which are governed by both cognitive and affective processes. We collected eye tracking data from 51 students watching a 12 min long educational video with and without subtitles. The learning gain after watching the video was calculated with pre- and post-test scores. Several multiple linear regression models revealed a) fixation duration can explain a substantial fraction of variation in the pre-post data, which indicates its usefulness in the study of learning processes; b) the arithmetic mean of fixation durations, which is the most commonly reported eye tracking metric, may not be the optimal choice; and c) a phenomenological model of fixation durations where the number of fixations over different temporal ranges are used as inputs seemed to perform the best. The results and their implications for learning process research are discussed.
Reading development at the text level: an investigation of surprisal and embedding-based text similarity effects on eye-movements in Chinese early readers
Authors: Fan Xi , Reilly Ronan
Published: February 2021

This paper describes the use of semantic similarity measures based on distributed representations of words, sentences, and paragraphs (so-called“embeddings”) to assess the impact of supra-lexical factors on eye movement data from early readers of Chinese. In addition, we used a corpus-based measure of surprisal to assess the impact of local word predictability. Eye movement data from 56 Chinese students were collected (a) in the students’ 4th grade and (b) one year later while they were in 5th grade. Results indicated that surprisal and some text similarity measures have a significant impact on the moment-to-moment processing of words in reading. The paper presents an easy-to-use set of tools for linking the low-level aspects of fixation durations to a hierarchy of sentence-level and paragraph-level features that can be computed automatically. The study is the first attempt, as far as we are aware, to track the developmental trajectory of these influences in developing readers across a range of reading abilities. The similarity-based measures described here can be used (a) to provide a measure of reader sensitivity to sentence and paragraph cohesion and (b) to assess specific texts for their suitability for readers of different reading ability levels.
Do standard optometric measures predict binocular coordination during reading?
Authors: Joss Joëlle , Jainta Stephanie
Published: February 2021

In reading, binocular eye movements are required for optimal visual processing and thus, in case of asthenopia or reading problems, standard orthoptic and optometric routines check individual binocular vision by a variety of tests. The present study therefore examines the predictive value of such standard measures of heterophoria, accommodative and vergence facility, AC/A-ratio, NPC and symptoms for binocular coordination parameters during reading. Binocular eye movements were recorded (EyeLink II) for 65 volunteers during a typical reading task and linear regression analyses related all parameters of binocular coordination to all above-mentioned optometric measures: while saccade disconjugacy was weakly predicted by vergence facility (15% explained variance), vergence facility, AC/A and symptoms scores predicted vergence drift (31%). Heterophoria, vergence facility and NPC explained 31% of fixation disparity and first fixation duration showed minor relations to symptoms (18%). In sum, we found only weak to moderate relationships, with expected, selective associations: dynamic parameter related to optometric tests addressing vergence dynamics, whereas the static parameter (fixation disparity) related mainly to heterophoria. Most surprisingly, symptoms were only loosely related to vergence drift and fixation duration, reflecting associations to a dynamic aspect of binocular eye movements in reading and potentially non-specific, overall but slight reading deficiency. Thus, the efficiency of optometric tests to predict binocular coordination during reading was low – questioning a simple, straightforward extrapolation of such test results to an overlearned, complex task.
Two electrical engineers, one problem, and evolution produced the same solution: A historical note
Authors: Dell'Osso Louis
Published: February 2021

This note adds historical context into solving the problem of improving the speed of the step response of a low-order plant in two different types of control systems, a chemical mixing system and the human saccadic system. Two electrical engineers studied the above problem: one to understand and model how nature and evolution solved it and the other to design a control system to solve it in a man-made commercial system. David A. Robinson discovered that fast and accurate saccades were produced by a pulse-step of neural innervation applied to the extraocular plant. Leonidas M. Mantgiaris invented a method to achieve rapid and accurate chemical mixing by applying a large stimulus for a short period of time and then replacing it with the desired steady-state value (i.e., a “pulse-step” input). Thus, two humans used their brains to: 1) determine how the human brain produced human saccades; and 2) invent a control-system method to produce fast and accurate chemical mixing. That the second person came up with the same method by which his own brain was making saccades may shed light on the question of whether the human brain can fully understand itself.
Editorial
Authors: Groner Rudolf
Published: February 2021

Editorial to the Special Issue on Corpus Analyses of Eye Movements in Reading
Parsing costs as predictors of reading difficulty: An evaluation using the Potsdam Sentence Corpus
Authors: Boston Marisa Ferrara , Hale John , Kliegl Reinhold , Patil Umesh , Vasishth Shravan
Published: February 2021

The surprisal of a word on a probabilistic grammar constitutes a promising complexity metric for human sentence comprehension difficulty. Using two different grammar types, surprisal is shown to have an effect on fixation durations and regression probabilities in a sample of German readers’ eye movements, the Potsdam Sentence Corpus. A linear mixed-effects model was used to quantify the effect of surprisal while taking into account unigram frequency and bigram frequency (transitional probability), word length, and empirically-derived word predictability; the socalled “early” and “late” measures of processing difficulty both showed an effect of surprisal. Surprisal is also shown to have a small but statistically non-significant effect on empirically-derived predictability itself. This work thus demonstrates the importance of including parsing costs as a predictor of comprehension difficulty in models of reading, and suggests that a simple identification of syntactic parsing costs with early measures and late measures with durations of post-syntactic events may be difficult to uphold.
A multiple regression analysis of syntactic and semantic influences in reading normal text
Authors: Pynte Joel , New Boris , Kennedy Alan
Published: February 2021

Semantic and syntactic influences during reading normal text were examined in a series of multiple regression analyses conducted on a large-scale corpus of eyemovement data. Two measures of contextual constraints, based on the syntactic descriptions provided by Abeillé, Clément et Toussenel (2003) and one measure on semantic constraint, based on Latent Semantic Analysis, were included in the regression equation, together with a set of properties (length, frequency, etc.), known to affect inspection times. Both syntactic and semantic constraints were found to exert a significant influence, with less time spent inspecting highly constrained target words, relative to weakly constrained ones. Semantic and syntactic properties apparently exerted their influence independently from each other, as suggested by the lack of interaction.
Editorial
Authors: Tatler Benjamin W.
Published: February 2021

Editorial to the Special Issue on Perception of Natural Scenes
Systematic tendencies in scene viewing
Authors: Tatler Benjamin W. , Vincent Benjamin T.
Published: February 2021

While many current models of scene perception debate the relative roles of low- and highlevel factors in eye guidance, systematic tendencies in how the eyes move may be informative. We consider how each saccade and fixation is influenced by that which preceded or followed it, during free inspection of images of natural scenes. We find evidence to suggest periods of localized scanning separated by ‘global’ relocations to new regions of the scene. We also find evidence to support the existence of small amplitude ‘corrective’ saccades in natural image viewing. Our data reveal statistical dependencies between successive eye movements, which may be informative in furthering our understanding of eye guidance.
Edit Blindness: The relationship between attention and global change blindness in dynamic scenes.
Authors: Smith Tim J. , Henderson John M.
Published: February 2021

Although we experience the visual world as a continuous, richly detailed space we often fail to notice large and significant changes. Such change blindness has been demonstrated for local object changes and changes to the visual form of whole images, however it is assumed that total changes from one image to another would be easily detected. Film editing presents such total changes several times a minute yet we rarely seem to be aware of them, a phenomenon we refer to here as edit blindness. This phenomenon has never been empirically demonstrated even though film editors believe they have at their disposal techniques that induce edit blindness, the Continuity Editing Rules. In the present study we tested the relationship between Continuity Editing Rules and edit blindness by instructing participants to detect edits while watching excerpts from feature films. Eye movements were recorded during the task. The results indicate that edits constructed according to the Continuity Editing Rules result in greater edit blindness than edits not adhering to the rules. A quarter of edits joining two viewpoints of the same scene were undetected and this increased to a third when the edit coincided with a sudden onset of motion. Some cuts may be missed due to suppression of the cut transients by coinciding with eyeblinks or saccadic eye movements but the majority seem to be due to inattentional blindness as viewers attend to the depicted narrative. In conclusion, this study presents the first empirical evidence of edit blindness and its relationship to natural attentional behaviour during dynamic scene viewing.
Editorial
Authors: Walker Robin , Liversedge Simon P.
Published: February 2021

Editorial to the Special Issue in Honour of John M. Findlay
Binocular coordination of saccades: development, aging and cerebral substrate
Authors: Kapoula Zoë , Vernet Marine , Yang Qing , Bucci Maria Pia
Published: February 2021

The origin of binocular coordination of saccades (central, peripheral) and the role of learning remain controversial (Hering vs Helmholtz). We will present evidence for learning: in young children (5 years) horizontal saccades are poorly yoked, coordination improves slowly with age particularly at near viewing distances. In dyslexic teenagers coordination of horizontal saccades is poor relative to non-dyslexics, suggesting slower learning. On the other hand, in healthy elderly participants (73 years) coordination of vertical saccades is intact, an example of a non ageing sub-system. To assess further central mechanisms, we applied TMS over the posterior parietal cortex of healthy adults, 100 ms after target onset. TMS impaired coordination particularly for rightward and downward saccades. Thus binocular coordination of saccades relies partially on cerebral function.experimental stages.
The Influence of Distractors on Saccade-Target Selection: Saccade Trajectory Effects
Authors: Walker Robin , McSorley Eugene
Published: February 2021

It has long been known that the path (trajectory) taken by the eye to land on a target is rarely straight (Yarbus, 1967). Furthermore, the magnitude and direction of this natural tendency for curvature can be modulated by the presence of a competing distractor stimulus presented along with the saccade target. The distractor-related modulation of saccade trajectories provides a subtle measure of the underlying competitive processes involved in saccade target selection. Here we review some of our own studies into the effects distractors have on saccade trajectories, which can be regarded as a way of probing the competitive balance between target and distractor salience.
Influences of dwell time and cursor control on the performance in gaze driven typing
Authors: Helmert Jens R. , Pannasch Sebastian , Velichkovsky Boris M.
Published: February 2021

In gaze controlled computer interfaces the dwell time is often used as selection criterion. But this solution comes along with several problems, especially in the temporal domain: Eye movement studies on scene perception could demonstrate that fixations of different durations serve different purposes and should therefore be differentiated. The use of dwell time for selection implies the need to distinguish intentional selections from merely per-ceptual processes, described as the Midas touch problem. Moreover, the feedback of the actual own eye position has not yet been addressed to systematic studies in the context of usability in gaze based computer interaction. We present research on the usability of a simple eye typing set up. Different dwell time and eye position feedback configurations were tested. Our results indicate that smoothing raw eye position and temporal delays in visual feedback enhance the system's functionality and usability. Best overall performance was obtained with a dwell time of 500 ms.
Eye typing in application: A comparison of two systems with ALS patients
Authors: Pannasch Sebastian , Helmert Jens R. , Malischke Susann , Storch Alexander , Velichkovsky Boris M.
Published: February 2021

A variety of eye typing systems has been developed during the last decades. Such systems can provide support for people who lost the ability to communicate, e.g. patients suffering from motor neuron diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In the current retrospective analysis, two eye typing applications were tested (EyeGaze, GazeTalk) by ALS patients (N = 4) in order to analyze objective performance measures and subjective ratings. An advantage of the EyeGaze system was found for most of the evaluated criteria. The results are discussed in respect of the special target population and in relation to requirements of eye tracking devices.
Eye Tracking Analysis in Reading Online Newspapers
Authors: Zambarbieri Daniela , Carniglia Elena , Robino Carlo
Published: February 2021

Reading online newspapers is increasingly becoming more common, so that thousands of newspapers are published online today. Despite this development, there are many unanswered questions concerning subjects’ behaviour during reading an online newspapers. Recording eye movements when a subject is navigating within a news website can provide quantitative and objective information on subject’s behaviour and combined with other methodologies – usability testing, focus groups, log analysis - represents a powerful tool for improving news websites functionality, and by consequence their achievement among readers. Two Italian newspaper websites have been considered for the study described in this paper and the analysis has been focused on the exploration behaviour within the newspaper home page and the reading of article pages.
The effect of fixational eye movements on fixation identification with a dispersion-based fixation detection algorithm
Authors: Blignaut Pieter , Beelders Tanya
Published: February 2021

Gaze data of 31 participants of a memory recall experiment was analyzed and the I-DT dispersion based algorithm of Salvucci and Goldberg (2000) was used to identify fixations. It was found that individuals differ considerably with regard to the stability of eye gaze and that fixational eye movements affect the accuracy of fixation identification and the optimum dispersion threshold. It was also found that fixation radius and the distance between the points in a fixation that are the furthest apart are the most reliable metrics for a dispersion-based fixation identification algorithm. Finally, it is argued that the correct setting of dispersion threshold is of utmost importance, especially if the participants are not homogeneous with regard to gaze stability.
Gaze interaction enhances problem solving: Effects of dwell-time based, gaze-augmented, and mouse interaction on problem-solving strategies and user experience
Authors: Bednarik Roman , Gowases Tersia , Tukiainen Markku
Published: February 2021

It is still unknown whether the very application of gaze for interaction has effects on cognitive strategies users employ and how these effects materialize. We conducted a between-subject experiment in which thirty-six participants interacted with a computerized problem-solving game using one of three interaction modalities: dwell-time, gaze-augmented interaction, and the conventional mouse. We observed how using each of the modalities affected performance, problem solving strategies, and user experience. Users with gaze-augmented interaction outperformed the other groups on several problem-solving measures, committed fewer errors, were more immersed, and had a better user experience. The results give insights to the cognitive processes during interaction using gaze and have implications on the design of eye-tracking interfaces.
On-line syntactic and semantic influences in reading revisited
Authors: Pynte Joel , New Boris , Kennedy Alan
Published: February 2021

This study is a follow-up to Pynte, New and Kennedy (2008), Journal of Eye Movement Research . 2(1):4, 1-11. A new series of multiple regression analyses were conducted on the French part of the Dundee corpus, using a new set of syntactic and semantic predictors. In line with our prior study, quite different patterns of results were obtained for function and content words. We conclude that syntactic processing operations during reading mainly concern function words and are carried out ahead of semantic processing.
Mixed Responses: Why Readers Spend Less Time at Unfavorable Landing Positions
Authors: Feng Gary
Published: February 2021

This paper investigates why the average fixation duration tends to decrease from the center to the two ends of a word. Specifically, it examines (a) whether unfavorable landing positions trigger a corrective mechanism, (b) whether the triggering is based on the internal efference copy mechanism, and (c) whether the corrective mechanism is specific to fixations that missed their targeted words. To estimate the mean and proportion of the corrective fixations, a 3-parameter mixture model was fitted to distributions of first fixation duration from two large eye movement databases in studies 1 and 2. Study 3 experimentally created mislocated fixations using a gaze-contingent screen shift paradigm. There is little evidence for the efference copy mechanism and limited support for the mislocated fixations hypothesis. Overall, data suggest a process that terminates fixations sooner than would during normal reading; it is triggered by the visual input during a fixation, and is flexibly engaged at eccentric landing positions and in reading short words. Implications to theories of reading eye movements are discussed.
The behavioural and neurophysiological modulation of microsaccades in monkeys
Authors: Brien Donald C. , Corneil Brian D. , Fecteau Jillian H. , Bell Andrew H. , Munoz Douglas P.
Published: February 2021

Systematic modulations of microsaccades have been observed in humans during covert orienting. We show here that monkeys are a suitable model for studying the neurophysiology governing these modulations of microsaccades. Using various cue-target saccade tasks, we observed the effects of visual and auditory cues on microsaccades in monkeys. As in human studies, following visual cues there was an early bias in cue-congruent microsaccades followed by a later bias in cue-incongruent microsaccades. Following auditory cues there was a cue-incongruent bias in left cues only. In a separate experiment, we observed that brainstem omnipause neurons, which gate all saccades, also paused during microsaccade generation. Thus, we provide evidence that at least part of the same neurocircuitry governs both large saccades and microsaccades.
Binocular coordination during smooth pursuit in dyslexia: a multiple case study
Authors: Yang Qing , Vernet Marine , Bucci Maria-Pia , Kapoula Zoe
Published: February 2021

Smooth pursuit (SP) was explored in dyslexics and non-dyslexics. Dyslexic children show similar gain of SP, and number and amplitude of catch-up saccades (CUS) as non-dyslexic children. The quality of binocular coordination is good for both groups; the only significant exception is for pursuit to the right for both smooth phase and CUS; dyslexics show higher disconjugacy. Decrement of binocular control during rightward pursuit only could reflect immaturity of oculomotor learning mechanisms needed to optimize binocular coordination for all directions. Yet, these observations need to be confirmed in a larger population including older children and compared with other populations, e.g. with right-to-left reading.
Object Frequency and Predictability Effects on Eye Fixation Durations in Real-World Scene Viewing
Authors: Wang Hsueh-Cheng , Hwang Alex D. , Pomplun Marc
Published: February 2021

During text reading, the durations of eye fixations decrease with greater frequency and predictability of the currently fixated word (Rayner, 1998; 2009). However, it has not been tested whether those results also apply to scene viewing. We computed object frequency and predictability from both linguistic and visual scene analysis (LabelMe, Russell et al., 2008), and Latent Semantic Analysis (Landauer et al., 1998) was applied to estimate predictability. In a scene-viewing experiment, we found that, for small objects, linguistics-based frequency, but not scene-based frequency, had effects on first fixation duration, gaze duration, and total time. Both linguistic and scene-based predictability affected total time. Similar to reading, fixation duration decreased with higher frequency and predictability. For large objects, we found the direction of effects to be the inverse of those found in reading studies. These results suggest that the recognition of small objects in scene viewing shares some characteristics with the recognition of words in reading.
Adaptation and mislocalization fields for saccadic outward adaptation in humans
Authors: Schnier Fabian , Zimmermann Eckart , Lappe Markus
Published: February 2021

Adaptive shortening of a saccade influences the metrics of other saccades within a spatial window around the adapted target. Within this adaptation field visual stimuli presented before an adapted saccade are mislocalized in proportion to the change of the saccade metric. We investigated the saccadic adaptation field and associated localization changes for saccade lengthening, or outward adaptation. We measured the adaptation field for two different saccade adaptations (14 deg to 20 deg and 20 deg to 26 deg) by testing transfer to 34 different target positions. We measured localization judgements by asking subjects to localize a probe flashed before saccade onset. The amount of adaptation transfer differed for different target locations. It increased with increases of the horizontal component of the saccade and remained largely constant with deviation of the vertical component of the saccade. Mislocalization of probes inside the adaptation field was correlated with the amount of adaptation of saccades to the probe location. These findings are consistent with the assumption that oculomotor space and perceptual space are linked to each other.
Systematic diagonal and vertical errors in antisaccades and memory-guided saccades
Authors: Abegg Mathias , Lee Hyung , Barton Jason J. S.
Published: February 2021

Studies of memory-guided saccades in monkeys show an upward bias, while studies of antisaccades in humans show a diagonal effect, a deviation of endpoints toward the 45° diagonal. To determine if these two different spatial biases are specific to different types of saccades, we studied prosaccades, antisaccades and memory-guided saccades in humans. The diagonal effect occurred not with prosaccades but with antisaccades and memory-guided saccades with long intervals, consistent with hypotheses that it originates in computations of goal location under conditions of uncertainty. There was a small upward bias for memory-guided saccades but not prosaccades or antisaccades. Thus this bias is not a general effect of target uncertainty but a property specific to memory-guided saccades.
Different judgments about visual textures invoke different eye movement patterns
Authors: Jacobs Richard H.A.H. , Renken Remco , Thumfart Stefan , Cornelissen Frans W.
Published: February 2021

Top-down influences on the guidance of the eyes are generally modeled as modulating influences on bottom-up salience maps. Interested in task-driven influences on how, rather than where, the eyes are guided, we expected differences in eye movement parameters accompanying beauty and roughness judgments about visual textures. Participants judged textures for beauty and roughness, while their gaze-behavior was recorded. Eye movement parameters differed between the judgments, showing task effects on how people look at images. Similarity in the spatial distribution of attention suggests that differences in the guidance of attention are non-spatial, possibly feature-based. During the beauty judgment, participants fixated on patches that were richer in color information, further supporting the idea that differences in the guidance of attention are feature-based. A finding of shorter fixation durations during beauty judgments may indicate that extraction of the relevant features is easier during this judgment. This finding is consistent with a more ambient scanning mode during this judgment. The differences in eye movement parameters during different judgments about highly repetitive stimuli highlight the need for models of eye guidance to go beyond salience maps, to include the temporal dynamics of eye guidance.
Orienting during gaze guidance in a letter-identification task
Authors: Rasche Christoph , Gegenfurtner Karl
Published: February 2021

The idea of gaze guidance is to lead a viewer’s gaze through a visual display in order to facilitate the viewer’s search for specific information in a least-obtrusive manner. This study investigates saccadic orienting when a viewer is guided in a fast-paced, low-contrast letter identification task. Despite the task’s difficulty and although guiding cues were ad-justed to gaze eccentricity, observers preferred attentional over saccadic shifts to obtain a letter identification judgment; and if a saccade was carried out its saccadic constant error was 50%. From those results we derive a number of design recommendations for the process of gaze guidance.
Repeated Web Page Visits and the Scanpath Theory: A Recurrent Pattern Detection Approach
Authors: Burmester Michael , Mast Marcus
Published: February 2021

This paper investigates the eye movement sequences of users visiting web pages repeatedly. We are interested in potential habituation due to repeated exposure. The scanpath theory posits that every person learns an idiosyncratic gaze sequence on first exposure to a stimulus and re-applies it on subsequent exposures. Josephson and Holmes (2002) tested the applicability of this hypothesis to web page revisitation but results were inconclusive. With a recurrent temporal pattern detection technique, we examine additional aspects and expose scanpaths. Results do not suggest direct applicability of the scanpath theory. While repetitive scan patterns occurred and were individually distinctive, their occurrence was variable, there were often several different patterns per person, and patterns were not primarily formed on the first exposure. However, extensive patterning occurred for some participants yet not for others which deserves further study into its determinants.
The Illusion of Being Located in Dynamic Virtual Environments. Can Eye Movement Parameters Predict Spatial Presence?
Authors: Wissmath Bartholomäus , Stricker Daniel , Weibel David , Siegenthaler Eva , Mast Fred W.
Published: February 2021

Attention allocation towards the mediated environment is assumed to be a necessary precondition to feel localized in a virtual world. In presence research, however, the potential of eye movement research has not been fully exploited so far. In this study, participants (N=44) rode on a virtual roller coaster simulation. We compare participants scoring high versus low on presence. During the ride, the eye movements and subjective ex post presence judgments were assessed. We found high sensations of presence to be associated with fewer fixations and a tendency towards longer fixation durations. In contrast to the immersive tendency trait, eye movement parameters can predict presence.
Effects of Vowel Length on Gaze Durations in Silent and Oral Reading
Authors: Huestegge Lynn
Published: February 2021

Vowel length is known to affect reaction times in single word reading. Eye movement studies involving silent sentence reading showed that phonological information of a word can be acquired even before it is fixated. However, it remained an open question whether vowel length directly influences oculomotor control in sentence reading. In the present eye tracking study, subjects read sentences that included target words of varying vowel length and frequency. In Experiment 1, subjects read silently for comprehension, whereas Experiment 2 involved oral reading. Experiments 3 and 4 additionally included an articulatory suppression task and a foot tapping task. Results indicated that in conditions that did not require additional articulation (Experiments 1 and 4) gaze durations were increased for words with long vowels compared to words with short vowels. Conditions that required simultaneous articulation (Experiments 2 and 3) did not yield a vowel length effect. The results point to an influence of phonetic properties on oculomotor control during silent reading around the time of the completion of lexical access.
Abstracts of the 15th European Conference on Eye Movements 2009
Authors: Liversedge Simon P.
Published: February 2021

Welcome to the 15th European Conference on Eye Movements. The conference will begin with an address by the Mayor of Southampton, followed by a brief welcome from Professor Rudolf Groner. This will then be followed by a packed scientific program of almost 350 presentations. We hope you enjoy both the academic and intellectual aspects of the conference, as well as the social events that we have organised.
Lexical and post-lexical complexity effects on eye movements in reading
Authors: Warren Tessa , Reichle Erik D. , Patson Nikole D.
Published: February 2021

The current study investigated how a post-lexical complexity manipulation followed by a lexical complexity manipulation affects eye movements during reading. Both manipulations caused disruption in all measures on the manipulated words, but the patterns of spillover differed. Critically, the effects of the two kinds of manipulations did not interact, and there was no evidence that post-lexical processing difficulty delayed lexical processing on the next word (c.f. Henderson & Ferreira, 1990). This suggests that post-lexical processing of one word and lexical processing of the next can proceed independently and likely in parallel. This finding is consistent with the assumptions of the E-Z Reader model of eye movement control in reading (Reichle, Warren, & McConnell, 2009).
Joint Analysis of Static and Dynamic Importance in the Eye-Tracking Records of Web Page Readers
Authors: Matsuda Noriyuki , Takeuchi Haruhiko
Published: February 2021

Heat maps highlight cumulative, static importance in eye-tracking records, while network analysis helps to elucidate dynamic importance from transitional relations. The present study was designed to perform both analyses in the same conceptual framework, i.e., network representation. For this purpose, heat maps comprising 5 × 5 segments were overlaid with networks, both of which were produced from the eye-tracking records of 20 subjects who read 10 top web pages that were classified into three layout types. The heat of the segments was graded on the basis of five percentile scores, whereas the core-peripheral nodes were identified by the agreement of centrality and ranking indices. The congruence between the two types of importance was generally good at the node level and the community levels. Additional findings included a) mixed patterns of the sustained fixations (i.e., loops) within the total fixations, and b) an increase in reciprocity as the network scope was narrowed to communities and then to the core neighborhoods.
Aftereffects of Saccades Explored in a Dynamic Neural Field Model of the Superior Colliculus
Authors: Wang Zhiguo , Satel Jason , Trappenberg Thomas P. , Klein Raymond M.
Published: February 2021

When viewing a scene or searching for a target, an observer usually makes a series of saccades that quickly shift the orientation of the eyes. The present study explored how one saccade affects subsequent saccades within a dynamic neural field model of the superior colliculus (SC). The SC contains an oculocentric motor map that encodes the vector of saccades and remaps to the new fixation location after each saccade. Our simulations demonstrated that the observation that saccades which reverse their vectors are slower to initiate than those which repeat vectors can be explained by the afore-mentioned remapping process and the internal dynamics of the SC. How this finding connects to the study of inhibition of return is discussed and suggestions for future studies are presented.
The global effect: what determines where the eyes land?
Authors: Stigchel Stefan Van der , Nijboer Tanja C.W.
Published: February 2021

In certain situations, the endpoint of an eye movement is not positioned on the centre of a target element, but deviates in the direction of another element. This phenomenon has been termed 'the global effect' and has proven to constitute a valuable measure of various processes that control and influence our oculomotor behavior. The goal of the current review is to provide insight in the factors that determine where the eyes land. We will focus on the fundamental characteristics of the global effect and discuss the various domains in which the global effect has been applied. The global effect appears to be best explained in terms of a weighted average of activity in a saccade map.
Time-Dependent Changes In Viewing Behavior On Similarly Structured Web Pages
Authors: Kaspar Kai , Ollermann Frank , Hamborg Kai-Christoph
Published: February 2021

This article focuses on the impact of observation time and web page structure on viewing behavior. 63 subjects observed similarly structured pages of a popular commercial internet shop. Eye movements were recorded and analyzed regarding several saccade parameters, the individual fixation distribution by means of a progressive entropy approach, and the within- as well as between-subject congruency of fixation distributions. Our results show that viewing behavior significantly changed while subjects observed individual web pages. In contrast, we only found little evidence for a change in eye movements across web pages and hence for an attention-related schema building. In this context, we also provide an example of the impact of web page elements’ position on fixation probability.
Effect of Saccadic Adaptation on Sequences of Saccades
Authors: Panouillères Muriel , Salemme Roméo , Urquizar Christian , Pélisson Denis
Published: February 2021

Accuracy of saccadic eye movements is maintained thanks to adaptation mechanisms. The adaptive lengthening and shortening of reactive and voluntary saccades rely on partially separate neural substrates. Although in daily-life we mostly perform sequences of saccades, the effect of saccadic adaptation has been mainly evaluated on single saccades. Here, sequences of two saccades were recorded before and after adaptation of rightward saccades. In 4 separate sessions, reactive and voluntary saccades were adaptively shortened or lengthened. We found that the second saccade of the sequence always remained accurate and compensated for the adaptive changes of the first rightward saccade size. This finding suggests that adaptation loci are upstream of the site where the efference copy involved in sequence planning originates.