scholarly journals Ongoing Cognitive Processing Influences Precise Eye-Movement Targets in Reading

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-362
Author(s):  
Klinton Bicknell ◽  
Roger Levy ◽  
Keith Rayner

Reading is a highly complex learned skill in which humans move their eyes three to four times every second in response to visual and cognitive processing. The consensus view is that the details of these rapid eye-movement decisions—which part of a word to target with a saccade—are determined solely by low-level oculomotor heuristics. But maximally efficient saccade targeting would be sensitive to ongoing word identification, sending the eyes farther into a word the farther its identification has already progressed. Here, using a covert text-shifting paradigm, we showed just such a statistical relationship between saccade targeting in reading and trial-to-trial variability in cognitive processing. This result suggests that, rather than relying purely on heuristics, the human brain has learned to optimize eye movements in reading even at the fine-grained level of character-position targeting, reflecting efficiency-based sensitivity to ongoing cognitive processing.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Ramtin Zargari Marandi ◽  
Camilla Ann Fjelsted ◽  
Iris Hrustanovic ◽  
Rikke Dan Olesen ◽  
Parisa Gazerani

The affective dimension of pain contributes to pain perception. Cognitive load may influence pain-related feelings. Eye tracking has proven useful for detecting cognitive load effects objectively by using relevant eye movement characteristics. In this study, we investigated whether eye movement characteristics differ in response to pain-related feelings in the presence of low and high cognitive loads. A set of validated, control, and pain-related sounds were applied to provoke pain-related feelings. Twelve healthy young participants (six females) performed a cognitive task at two load levels, once with the control and once with pain-related sounds in a randomized order. During the tasks, eye movements and task performance were recorded. Afterwards, the participants were asked to fill out questionnaires on their pain perception in response to the applied cognitive loads. Our findings indicate that an increased cognitive load was associated with a decreased saccade peak velocity, saccade frequency, and fixation frequency, as well as an increased fixation duration and pupil dilation range. Among the oculometrics, pain-related feelings were reflected only in the pupillary responses to a low cognitive load. The performance and perceived cognitive load decreased and increased, respectively, with the task load level and were not influenced by the pain-related sounds. Pain-related feelings were lower when performing the task compared with when no task was being performed in an independent group of participants. This might be due to the cognitive engagement during the task. This study demonstrated that cognitive processing could moderate the feelings associated with pain perception.


1974 ◽  
Vol 124 (583) ◽  
pp. 547-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Firth

Almost all sleep-promoting drugs distort the natural pattern of sleep by suppressing rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and cause a rebound to above-normal values on withdrawal which typically lasts about six weeks (Oswald, 1968, 1969). Furthermore, barbiturates reduce the number of eye movements per unit time in REM sleep (Oswald et al., 1963; Baekeland, 1967; Lester et al., 1968; Feinberg et al., 1969), with a rebound in eye movement (EM) profusion on withdrawal (Oswald, 1970). Non-barbiturate hypnotics do likewise, also with a rebound in EM profusion on withdrawal (Allen et al., 1968; Lewis, 1968).


Perception ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Neary ◽  
Arnold J Wilkins

When a rapid eye movement (saccade) is made across material displayed on cathode ray tube monitors with short-persistence phosphors, various perceptual phenomena occur. The phenomena do not occur when the monitor has a long-persistence phosphor. These phenomena were observed for certain spatial arrays, their possible physiological basis noted, and their effect on the control of eye movements examined. When the display consisted simply of two dots, and a saccade was made from one to the other, a transient ghost image was seen just beyond the destination target. When the display consisted of vertical lines, tilting and displacement of the lines occurred. The phenomena were more intrusive for the latter display and there was a significant increase in the number of corrective saccades. These results are interpreted in terms of the effects of fluctuating illumination (and hence phosphor persistence) on saccadic suppression.


1964 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ascanio M. Rossi ◽  
Allan Furhman ◽  
Philip Solomon

Three Ss in sensory deprivation were continuously monitored by electroencephalographic (EEG) and electrooculographic (EOG) recordings. Retrospective reports of their mental states were given upon receipt of a signal. Ratings of report contents were compared with EEG determined levels of arousal and with the occurrence of rapid eye movements (REMs). Results indicate that the incidences of hallucinations and thought disorganization vary inversely with level of arousal, and hallucinations are not accompanied by REMs as occurs during dreaming.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-112
Author(s):  
Mina Sano

Early childhood children tend to make musical expressions watching other children or the teacher’s piano accompaniment. However, it has not been inspected yet how eye movement is affected by music. To provide the optimized procedure to capture eye movement’s characteristics reflecting music, the statistical technique was used to evaluate effective parameters. In this study, eye trackers (Tobii Glasses 2) were used to acquire data of eye movements during musical expression of early childhood children and to conduct quantitative analysis. 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5- year-old children in two early childhood facilities (n=58) participated in eye-tracking while singing multiple songs of major and minor. This paper focuses on saccade (rapid eye movement) and gaze behaviors of early childhood children and mainly conducts, a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the acquired data (age * facility*tonality). As a result, it was found that the number of occurrences of saccade and the total moving distances of saccade showed a statistical significance between means regarding differences in the tonality of major/minor key of songs, and childcare forms.


Author(s):  
Jocelyn R. Folk ◽  
Michael A. Eskenazi

This chapter provides an overview of how the observation of eye movement behavior can be used to study how words are identified during reading in different populations. The chapter begins with a discussion of different eye movement behaviors, the perceptual span, and parafoveal processing. After providing the reader with a basic understanding of terms and methodology, the authors discuss how eye movements in reading change across the lifespan, individual differences in eye movement behavior in lower-skill and higher-skill adult readers, and eye movement patterns in special populations. This discussion highlights what is known about changes in eye movement behaviors from developing readers to older adult readers. It also includes a discussion of the role of eye movements in dyslexia and eye movement behavior in readers who are deaf.


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