Modulation of oculomotor control during reading of mirrored and inverted texts

Reading vertically and horizontally mirrored text: An eye movement investigation

This study examined the cognitive processes involved in reading vertically and horizontally mirrored text. We tracked participants' eye movements while they were reading the Potsdam Sentence Corpus which consists of 144 sentences with target words that are manipulated for length and frequency. Sentences were presented in three different conditions: In the normal condition, text was presented with upright letters, in the vertical condition, each letter was flipped around its vertical (left-right) axis while in the horizontal condition, letters were flipped around their horizontal (up-down) axis. Results show that reading was slowed down in both mirror conditions and that horizontal mirroring was particularly disruptive. In both conditions, we found larger effects of word length than in the normal condition indicating that participants read the sentences more serially and effortfully. Similarly, frequency effects were larger in both mirror conditions in later reading measures (gaze duration, go-past time, and total reading time) and particularly pronounced in the horizontal condition. This indicates that reading mirrored script involves a late checking mechanism that is particularly important for reading a horizontally mirrored script. Together, our findings demonstrate that mirroring affects both early visual identification and later linguistic processes.

Feedback beyond accuracy: Using eye-tracking to detect comprehensibility and interest during reading

Knowing what information a user wants is a paramount challenge to information science and technology. Implicit feedback is key to solving this challenge, as it allows information systems to learn about a user's needs and preferences. The available feedback, however, tends to be limited and its interpretation shows to be difficult. To tackle this challenge, we present a user study that explores whether tracking the eyes can unpack part of the complexity inherent to relevance and relevance decisions. The eye behavior of 30 participants reading 18 news articles was compared with their subjectively appraised comprehensibility and interest at a discourse level. Using linear regression models, the eye-tracking signal explained 49.93% (comprehensibility) and 30.41% (interest) of variance (p < .001). We conclude that eye behavior provides implicit feedback beyond accuracy that enables new forms of adaptation and interaction support for personalized information systems.