Journal of Eye Movement Research: Opening a New Chapter with MDPI
Department of Psychology, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
J. Eye Mov. Res. 2025, 18(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/jemr18010001
Submission received: 2 January 2025
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Accepted: 2 January 2025
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Published: 16 January 2025
In 1980, together with Dieter Heller, I initiated an interdisciplinary network called the “European Group of Scientists active in Eye Movement Research”, including scientists who use eye movement registration as a research tool, developing models based on oculomotor data obtained from a wide spectrum of phenomena, ranging from the neurophysiological to the perceptual and the cognitive levels. The group’s focus was on exchanging information on the current research, equipment, and software. Starting in 1981, it organized biennial conferences (ECEM, https://www.eyemovement.org/, accessed on 2 January 2025) at different locations all over Europe. The group published edited books and, starting in 2007, launched the Journal of Eye Movement Research (JEMR), an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, scientific online journal.
After 17 years of cooperation with BOP (Bern Open Publishing) it was noted that, in order to stay successful, it seems necessary for a journal to coordinate with potential competitors within a strong publishing company. After a careful selection process, it was decided in June 2024 to choose MDPI as the new publisher of JEMR [1].
I am proud to have served the chief editor of the journal from its very beginning. Throughout this journey, I have been supported in my work by Simon Raess, Eva Krueger-Siegenthaler, and Walter Bischof, Sarah Singer, and Peter Stoffel. However, probably the most important input in terms of methodological and substantial questions came from my wife, Marina Groner. Due to my age and state of health, I will now resign from my post as soon as a successor has been elected.
My best wishes to the journal under its new publisher and to the Editorial Board, for continued success.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
Reference
- Journal of Eye Movement Research Home Page. Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jemr (accessed on 2 January 2025).
Short Biography of Author
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Groner is a Swiss psychologist, who specializes in cognitive psychology and media psychology. Groner received his PhD in psychology from the University of Vienna in 1966. From 1968 to 1970, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Theoretical Psychology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and was a member of the Michigan Mathematical Psychology Program in 1969. In 1981, he became Professor of Psychology at the University of Bern. He was invited as a Visiting Professor at Humboldt University Berlin; at the University of Wollongong, Australia; and at Kyoto University and Nagoya University, Japan. From 1998 to 2001, he was appointed as Director of the Swiss National Postdoctoral Program “Cognitive Psychology—Basic and Applied Aspects”. In 1971, he founded Vislab—a laboratory for the study of cognitive processes and eye movements at the University of Bern.
In 1980, Rudolf Groner initiated an interdisciplinary group called the “International Group of Scientists active in Eye Movement Research”. This group includes scientists who use eye movement registration as a research tool and develop models based on oculomotor data obtained from a wide spectrum of phenomena, ranging from the neurophysiological to the perceptual and the cognitive level. The group’s focus is on the exchange of information related to current research, equipment, and software. Starting 1981, the group organized biennial conferences (ECEM) at different locations all over Europe (https://www.eyemovement.org/ecem.html).
Over the years, the group published ten edited books. In 2008, Rudolf Groner founded and acted as Chief Editor of the Journal of Eye Movement Research (JEMR), which is an interdisciplinary open access journal. From 1970 to 1990, Rudolf Groner’s research interests focused on the mathematical modeling of complex cognitive activities by elementary modules. These modules consist of basic perceptual and attentional processes, and the visual information input is measured by parameters of eye fixations. The underlying processes are assumed to generate and test various hypotheses. In cooperation with Marina Groner, he developed a hypothetico-deductive theory of cognitive activity based on a set of axioms from which probability distributions of eye movement parameters were derived and compared with empirical data of measured eye fixation distributions. In addition to eye tracking data, the same hypothetico-deductive analysis was applied to other behavioral parameters. The distribution of time spent during problem solving and the probability of erroneous solutions could be predicted by one and the same model that assumes minimal short-term memory load, which must be compensated by extensive visual scanning of information available from the environment.
Groner extended Lawrence Stark’s concept of scanpaths to two different classes of scanning processes—local scanpaths, which are assumed to operate on the perceptual input bottom-up on a narrow time scale, and global scanpaths, which are driven top-down and operate on an extended time scale. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated the relation of basic visual processes to eye movement control. More recently, Groner and his colleagues have explored new ways of applying eye tracking to usability research. In another line of research, Rudolf Groner, Marina Groner, and Walter F. Bischof investigated the interdisciplinary aspects and the historical roots of heuristic thinking, and applied the distinction between algorithmic versus heuristic approaches as cognitive style variables that can be assessed and validated by a questionnaire.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Groner, R. Journal of Eye Movement Research: Opening a New Chapter with MDPI. J. Eye Mov. Res. 2025, 18, 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/jemr18010001
AMA Style
Groner R. Journal of Eye Movement Research: Opening a New Chapter with MDPI. Journal of Eye Movement Research. 2025; 18(1):1. https://doi.org/10.3390/jemr18010001
Chicago/Turabian StyleGroner, Rudolf. 2025. "Journal of Eye Movement Research: Opening a New Chapter with MDPI" Journal of Eye Movement Research 18, no. 1: 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/jemr18010001
APA StyleGroner, R. (2025). Journal of Eye Movement Research: Opening a New Chapter with MDPI. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 18(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/jemr18010001
