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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 6 (August 2020) – 6 articles

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13 pages, 1241 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Identifying Solution Strategies in a Mentalrotation Test with Gender-Stereotyped Objects

by Mirko Saunders and Claudia M. Quaiser-Pohl

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(6), 1-13; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.6.5 - 10 Mar 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 47

Abstract

Many studies deal with solution strategies in mental-rotation tests. The approaches range from global analysis, attention to object parts, holistic and piecemeal strategy to a combined strategy. Other studies do not speak of strategies, but of holistic or piecemeal processes or even of holistic or piecemeal rotation. The methodological approach used here is to identify mental-rotation strategies via gaze patterns derived from eye-tracking data when solving chronometric mental-rotation tasks with gender-stereotyped objects. The mental-rotation test consists of 3 male-stereotyped objects (locomotive, hammer, wrench) and 3 female-stereotyped objects (pram, hand mirror, brush) rotated at eight different angles. The sample consisted of 16 women and 10 men (age: M = 21.58; SD = 4.21). The results of a qualitative analysis with two individual objects (wrench and brush) showed four different gaze patterns. These gaze patterns appeared with different frequency in the two objects and correlated differently with performance and response time. The results indicate either an objectoriented or an egocentric mental-rotation strategy behind the gaze patterns. In general, a new methodological approach has been developed to identify mental-rotation strategies bottom-up which can also be used for other stimulus types. Full article

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12 pages, 275 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Do Standard Optometric Measures Predict Binocular Coordination During Reading?

by Joëlle Joss and Stephanie Jainta

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(6), 1-12; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.6.6 - 21 Jan 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 59

Abstract

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. Full article

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8 pages, 626 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Objective Measurement of Nine Gaze-Directions Using an Eye-Tracking Device

by Yo Iwata, Tomoya Handa and Hitoshi Ishikawa

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(6), 1-8; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.6.4 - 6 Oct 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 74

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the usefulness and efficacy of a novel eye-tracking device that can objectively measure nine gaze-directions. Methods: We measured each of the nine gaze-directions subjectively, using a conventional Hess screen test, and objectively, using the nine gaze-direction measuring device, and determined the correlation, addition error, and proportional error. We obtained two consecutive measurements of the nine gaze-directions using the newly developed device in healthy young people with exophoria and investigated the reproducibility of the measurements. We further measured the nine gaze-directions using a Hess screen test and the newly developed device in three subjects with cover test-based strabismus and compared the results. Results: We observed that the objective measurements obtained with the newly developed gaze-direction measuring device had significant correlation and addition error compared to the conventional subjective method, and we found no proportional error. These measurements had good reproducibility. Conclusion: The novel device can be used to observe delayed eye movement associated with limited eye movement in the affected eye, as well as the associated excessive movement of the healthy eye in patients with strabismus, similar to the Hess screen test. This is a useful device that can provide objective measurements of nine gaze-directions. Full article

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16 pages, 5961 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reading Development at the Text Level: An Investigation of Surprisal and Embeddingbased Text Similarity Effects on Eyemovements in Chinese Early Readers

by Xi Fan and Ronan Reilly

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(6), 1-16; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.6.2 - 9 Sep 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 59

Abstract

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. Full article

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26 pages, 1988 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Uninformative Parafoveal Masks on L1 and Late L2 Speakers

by Leigh B. Fernandez, Christoph Scheepers and Shanley E.M. Allen

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(6), 1-26; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.6.3 - 26 Aug 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 46

Abstract

Much reading research has found that informative parafoveal masks lead to a reading benefit for native speakers (see, Schotter et al., 2012). However, little reading research has tested the impact of uninformative parafoveal masks during reading. Additionally, parafoveal processing research is primarily restricted to native speakers. In the current study we manipulated the type of uninformative preview using a gaze contingent boundary paradigm with a group of L1 English speakers and a group of late L2 English speakers (L1 German). We were interested in how different types of uninformative masks impact on parafoveal processing, whether L1 and L2 speakers are similarly impacted, and whether they are sensitive to parafoveally viewed language-specific sub-lexical orthographic information. We manipulated six types of uninformative masks to test these objectives: an Identical, English pseudo-word, German pseudo-word, illegal string of letters, series of X’s, and a blank mask. We found that X masks affect reading the most with slight graded differences across the other masks, L1 and L2 speakers are impacted similarly, and neither group is sensitive to sub-lexical orthographic information. Overall these data show that not all previews are equal, and research should be aware of the way uninformative masks affect reading behavior. Additionally, we hope that future research starts to approach models of eye-movement behavior during reading from not only a monolingual but also from a multilingual perspective. Full article

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15 pages, 896 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fixation Duration and the Learning Process: An Eye Tracking Study with Subtitled Videos

by Shivsevak Negi and Ritayan Mitra

J. Eye Mov. Res. 2020, 13(6), 1-15; https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.13.6.1 - 16 Aug 2020

Cited by 72 | Viewed by 243

Abstract

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. Full article

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