Scanpath Regularity as an Index of Reading Comprehension

Abstract

Purpose: Recent research on the potential of using eye-tracking to measure reading comprehension ability suggests that the relationship between standard eye-tracking measures and reading comprehension is influenced by differences in task demands between comprehension assessments. We compared standard eye-tracking measures and scanpath regularity as predictors of reading comprehension scores. Method: We used a dataset in which participants were administered three widely-used reading comprehension assessments with varying task demands while their eye movements were monitored: the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC), the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT-5), and the sentence comprehension subtest of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-4). Results: Results showed that scanpath regularity measures, similarly to standard eye-tracking measures, were influenced by differences in task demands between the three tests. Nevertheless, both types of eye-tracking measures made unique contributions as predictors of comprehension and the best set of predictors included both standard eye-tracking measures and at least one scanpath measure across tests. Conclusion: The results provide evidence that scanpaths capture differences in eye-movement patterns missed by standard eye-tracking measures. Overall, the results highlight the effect of task demands on eye-movement behavior and suggest that reading goals and task demands need to be considered when interpreting eye-tracking data.

Comprehending irony in text: Evidence from scanpaths

“…The first step of the analysis was to generate and cluster scanpaths to identify the global reading patterns that participants used when reading passages of text that contained ironic and literal statements. This part of the analysis was carried out in the same way for the two datasets (i.e., Kaakinen et al, 2014, Exp 2;Olkoniemi et al, 2016) separately, and follows the same steps used in previous studies investigating reading strategies and individual differences using scanpaths (e.g., Mézière et al, 2022;Parshina et al, 2022;von der Malsburg & Vasishth, 2013).…”

“…Critically, these distinct patterns and strategies could not have been identified with standardly used word-level measures, showing that scanpaths can capture features of eye-movement behavior not caught by word-level measures. In addition, they found that readers' re-reading behavior and the extent to which they use those three strategies interacted with their WMC, showing that scanpaths are also useful to investigate the role of individual differences in processing strategies used during reading (see also Mézière et al, 2022;Parshina et al, 2022). Hence, scanpaths provide an ideal tool to investigate the strategies readers use in the processing written irony, as well as the role of individual differences such as WMC or comprehension accuracy in reading literal and ironic passages of text.…”

“…As such, scanpaths capture the overall pattern of gaze behavior during reading and can be used to investigate global reading strategies of sentences or whole passages of text. Critically, scanpaths have been shown to capture effects that are not necessarily caught by word-level measures (Mézière et al, 2022;Parshina et al, 2022;Von der Malsburg & Vasishth, 2011, 2013. In an early study, von der Malsburg and Vasishth (2013) used scanpaths to identify the processing strategies of readers when they encounter garden path sentences and considered the mediating effect of WMC on which strategy readers used.…”

Does early exposure to spoken and sign language affect reading fluency in deaf and hard-of-hearing adult signers?

“…Admittedly, reading fluency per se is not a direct index of reading skill or successful comprehension: A text can be skimmed fast but poorly understood (Strukelj and Niehorster, 2018). Moreover, eye movements while reading depend not only on reading skill but also on reading goals and task demands (Mézière et al, 2021(Mézière et al, , 2022. For these reasons, we approximate reading skill through a combination of two measures: scanpaths, a combined measure capturing eye movements while reading, and questions probing sentence comprehension.…”