Selective attention to question-relevant text information precedes high-quality summaries: Evidence from eye movements

Abstract

Comprehension and summarizing are closely related. As more strategic and selective processing during reading should be reflected in higher quality of summaries, the aim of this study was to use eye movement patterns to analyze how readers who produce good quality summaries process texts. 40 undergraduate students were instructed to read six expository texts in order to respond a causal question introduced in the end of the first paragraph. After reading, participants produced an oral summary of the text. Based on the quality of the summaries, participants were divided into three groups: High, Medium and Low Quality Summaries. The results revealed that readers who produced High Quality Summaries made significantly more and longer fixations and regressions in the question-relevant parts of texts when compared to the other two summary groups. These results suggest that the summary task performance could be a good predictor of the reading strategies utilized during reading.

Comprehending irony in text: Evidence from scanpaths

“…Last, the Pattern C included the longest reading times with extensive non-selective re-reading of the whole text. Interestingly, these scanpath patterns resemble reading strategies previously identified for reading expository texts (e.g., Hyönä et al, 2002;Hyönä & Nurminen, 2010;León et al, 2019).…”

“…For example, does returning to the context and to the ironic target phrase reflect selective rereading (i.e., rereading only interpretation-relevant parts of the text) or whether they are related to more random, non-selective rereading of the whole text (e.g., Hyönä et al, 2002;Hyönä & Numinen, 2006). Selective rereading of relevant parts of text might indicate a successful strategy for resolving the ironic meaning of a phrase, whereas non-selective rereading might be related to comprehension difficulties (e.g., Hyönä et al, 2002;León et al, 2019). Moreover, linear reading, in which the reader does not return to the preceding context at all, may indicate that the reader does not even notice irony, or that they resolve the ironic meaning efficiently during first-pass reading.…”

Written Versus Oral Cues: The Role of Rhetorical Competence in Learning From Texts

“…For this reason, asking for a summary is considered a good way to examine the implementation of the structure strategy (Beerwinkle, Wijekumar, Walpole, & Aguis, 2018; Williams et al, 2009); readers using the structure strategy will include more main ideas in the summary, and these ideas will be more linked. In fact, readers who produce high‐quality summaries make more and longer fixations and regressions in the relevant parts of texts when compared with readers who produce medium‐ and low‐quality summaries (León, Moreno, Escudero, & Kaakinen, 2019), and their summaries demonstrate text‐based global comprehension (McNamara et al., 1996), which is the level of understanding that, according to the findings of previous studies, improves with most of the metatextual cues manipulated here (Kintsch & Yarbrough, 1982; McNamara et al, 1996). With the use of another task to assess reading outcomes (e.g., inferential questions), we would not have been able to precisely evaluate the impacts of the cues manipulated here.…”

The effects of task difficulty on gaze behaviour during landing with visual flight rules in low-time pilots

“…Studies have demonstrated that specific gaze metrics including total dwell time, fixation frequency, scan path length, average saccade amplitude and fixation duration are associated with performance in various laboratory paradigms (Ayala et al, 2022;Hodgson et al, 2019;Lemonnier et al, 2014;Martin et al, 2017;Zelinsky & Sheinberg, 1997). For instance, task relevant areas tend to be fixated longer as task difficulty increases suggesting that fixation location and dwell time are a proxy for the allocation of attention (Ayala et al, 2022;Hodgson et al, 2000;León et al, 2019). Additionally, high performers show significant fixation biases toward task critical areas compared to low performers (Hodgson et al, 2000;León et al, 2019).…”

“…For instance, task relevant areas tend to be fixated longer as task difficulty increases suggesting that fixation location and dwell time are a proxy for the allocation of attention (Ayala et al, 2022;Hodgson et al, 2000;León et al, 2019). Additionally, high performers show significant fixation biases toward task critical areas compared to low performers (Hodgson et al, 2000;León et al, 2019). Fixation frequency, duration and scan path length tend to increase as a function of task difficulty, while saccade amplitudes decrease (Andrzejewska and Stolińska, 2016;Ayala et al, 2022;Hodgson et al, 2000;Kaller et al, 2009;Nitschke et al, 2012;Zelinsky & Sheinberg, 1997) due to the increased scanning and processing required to problem solve and elaborate on longer solution sequences.…”