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Journal of Eye Movement Research is published by MDPI from Volume 18 Issue 1 (2025). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by MDPI on mdpi.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Bern Open Publishing (BOP).

J. Eye Mov. Res., Volume 13, Issue 3 (March 2020) – 6 articles

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13 pages, 413 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reading Russian Poetry: An Expert–Novice Study

by Danil Fokin, Stefan Blohm and Elena Riekhakaynen

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(3), 1-13; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.3.7 - 16 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 75

Abstract

Studying the role of expertise in poetry reading, we hypothesized that poets’ expert knowledge comprises genre-appropriate reading- and comprehension strategies that are reflected in distinct patterns of reading behavior. We recorded eye movements while two groups of native speakers (n = 10 each) read selected Russian poetry: an expert group of professional poets who read poetry daily, and a control group of novices who read poetry less than once a month. We conducted mixed-effects regression analyses to test for effects of group on first-fixation durations, first-pass gaze durations, and total reading times per word while controlling for lexical- and text variables. First-fixation durations exclusively reflected lexical features, and total reading times reflected both lexical- and text variables; only first-pass gaze durations were additionally modulated by readers’ level of expertise. Whereas gaze durations of novice readers became faster as they progressed through the poems, and differed between line-final words and non-final ones, poets retained a steady pace of first-pass reading throughout the poems and within verse lines. Additionally, poets’ gaze durations were less sensitive to word length. We conclude that readers’ level of expertise modulates the way they read poetry. Our findings support theories of literary comprehension that assume distinct processing modes which emerge from prior experience with literary texts. Full article

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40 pages, 1635 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rhythmic Subvocalization: An Eye-Tracking Study on Silent Poetry Reading

by Judith Beck and Lars Konieczny

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(3), 1-40; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.3.5 - 14 Sep 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 54

Abstract

The present study investigates effects of conventionally metered and rhymed poetry on eyemovements in silent reading. Readers saw MRRL poems (i.e., metrically regular, rhymed language) in two layouts. In poem layout, verse endings coincided with line breaks. In prose layout verse endings could be mid-line. We also added metrical and rhyme anomalies. We hypothesized that silently reading MRRL results in building up auditive expectations that are based on a rhythmic “audible gestalt” and propose that rhythmicity is generated through subvocalization. Our results revealed that readers were sensitive to rhythmic-gestalt-anomalies but showed differential effects in poem and prose layouts. Metrical anomalies in particular resulted in robust reading disruptions across a variety of eye-movement measures in the poem layout and caused re-reading of the local context. Rhyme anomalies elicited stronger effects in prose layout and resulted in systematic re-reading of pre-rhymes. The presence or absence of rhythmic-gestalt-anomalies, as well as the layout manipulation, also affected reading in general. Effects of syllable number indicated a high degree of subvocalization. The overall pattern of results suggests that eye-movements reflect, and are closely aligned with, the rhythmic subvocalization of MRRL. This study introduces a two-stage approach to the analysis of long MRRL stimuli and contributes to the discussion of how the processing of rhythm in music and speech may overlap. Full article

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14 pages, 2136 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fluctuation in Pupil Size and Spontaneous Blinks Reflect Story Transportation

by Johanna K. Kaakinen and Jaana Simola

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(3), 1-14; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.3.6 - 1 Jun 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 62

Abstract

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. Full article

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19 pages, 750 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Following in Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss’ Footsteps: A Neurocognitive Poetics Investigation of Eye Movements During the Reading of Baudelaire’s ‘Les Chats’

by Marion Fechino, Arthur M. Jacobs and Jana Lüdtke

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(3), 1-19; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.3.4 - 30 Apr 2020

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 79

Abstract

Following Jakobson and Levi-Strauss (1) 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., (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)). 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; 2) into a cross-linguistic model of poetry reading. Full article

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35 pages, 1104 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Eye Movements and Mental Imagery During Reading of Literary Texts in Different Narrative Styles

by Lilla Magyari, Anne Mangen, Anežka Kuzmičová, Arthur M. Jacobs and Jana Lüdtke

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(3), 1-35; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.3.3 - 30 Mar 2020

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 101

Abstract

Based on Kuzmičová’s [1] phenomenological typology of narrative styles, we studied the specific contributions of mental imagery to literary reading experience and to reading behavior by combining questionnaires with eye-tracking methodology. Specifically, we focused on the two main categories in Kuzmičová’s [1] typology, i.e., texts dominated by an “enactive” style, and texts dominated by a “descriptive” style. “Enactive” style texts render characters interacting with their environment, and “descriptive” style texts render environments dissociated from human action. The quantitative analyses of word category distributions of two dominantly enactive and two dominantly descriptive texts indicated significant differences especially in the number of verbs, with more verbs in enactment compared to descriptive texts. In a second study, participants read two texts (one theoretically cueing descriptive imagery, the other cueing enactment imagery) while their eye movements were recorded. After reading, participants completed questionnaires assessing aspects of the reading experience generally, as well as their text-elicited mental imagery specifically. Results show that readers experienced more difficulties conjuring up mental images during reading descriptive style texts and that longer fixation duration on words were associated with enactive style text. We propose that enactive style involves more imagery processes which can be reflected in eye movement behavior. Full article

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9 pages, 1553 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Word Skipping as an Indicator of Individual Reading Style During Literary Reading

by Myrthe Faber, Marloes Mak and Roel M. Willems

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(3), 1-9; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.3.2 - 27 Feb 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 58

Abstract

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 ≤ 0.11) 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 > 0.51). 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. Full article

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