Developmental trajectories of eye movements in oral and silent reading for beginning readers: a longitudinal investigation.

Eye movements provide a sensitive window into cognitive processing during reading. In the present study, we investigated beginning readers' longitudinal changes in temporal and spatial measures of eye movements during oral versus silent reading, the extent to which variation in eye movements is attributable to individual differences and text differences, and the functional form of growth trajectories of eye-movement variables. Data were from 363 English-speaking children (52% male; 59.8% White) in the US who were followed longitudinally from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Results showed a rapid decrease in temporal eye-movement measures (e.g., first fixation) and an increase in spatial eye-movement measures (initial landing position) in both oral and silent reading. The majority of variance in eye movements was attributable to individual differences whereas some variance in initial landing position was due to text differences. Most eye-movement measures had nonlinear growth trajectories where fast development tapered off near the end of Grade 3 while initial fixation count and total gaze count in silent reading had a linear growth trajectory. The findings provide a first large-scale look into the developmental progression of eye movements during oral and silent reading during a critical period when reading skills rapidly develop.

Semantic feature activation takes time: longer SOA elicits earlier priming effects during reading.

While most previous studies of "semantic" priming confound associative and semantic relations, here we use a simple co-occurrence-based approach to examine "pure" semantic priming, while experimentally controlling for associative relations. We define associative relations by the co-occurrence of words in the sentences of a large text corpus. Contextual-semantic feature overlap, in contrast, is defined by the number of common associates that the prime shares with the target. Then we revisit the spreading activation theory and examine whether a long vs. short time available for semantic feature activation leads to early vs. late viewing time effects on the target words of a sentence reading experiment. We independently manipulate contextual-semantic feature overlap of two primes with one target word in sentences of the form pronoun, verb prime, article, adjective prime and target noun, e. g., "She rides the gray elephant." The results showed that long-SOA (verb-noun) overlap reduces early single and first fixation durations of the target noun, and short-SOA (adjective-noun) overlap reduces late go-past durations. This result pattern can be explained by the spreading activation theory: The semantic features of the prime words need some time to become sufficiently active before they can reliably affect target processing. Therefore, the verb can act on the target noun's early eye-movement measures presented three words later, while the adjective is presented immediately prior to the target-thus a difficult adjective-noun semantic integration leads to a late sentence re-examination of the preceding words.

Spirometry has added value over electrodermal activity as a physiological marker of mental load in male subjects.

The objective distinction of different types of mental demands as well as their intensity is relevant for research and practical application but poses a challenge for established physiological methods. We investigated whether respiratory gases (oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide output) are suitable to distinguish between emotional stress and cognitive load. To this end, we compared the application of spirometry with an established procedure, namely electrodermal activity (EDA). Our results indicate that electrodermal activity shows a strong responsivity to emotional stress induction, which was highly correlated with its responsivity to cognitive load. Respiratory gases were both sensitive and specific to cognitive load and had the advantage of being predictive for cognitive performance as well as self-reported emotional state. These results support the notion that respiratory gases are a valuable complement to common physiological procedures in the detection and discrimination of different mental demands.

Cognitive glucose sensitivity-proposing a link between cognitive performance and reliance on external glucose uptake.

Existing evidence on the effects of glucose supplementation on cognitive performance appears inconclusive. Metabolic switching offers an approach to explain such incoherent findings based on differences in cognitive functioning after fasting. We propose a new construct, cognitive glucose sensitivity (CGS), which quantifies individual performance gain due to glucose supplementation. We tested the hypothesis that the effects of glucose ingestion depend on CGS, cognitive task domain, and sex. In addition, the relationship between CGS and body mass index (BMI) was examined. Seventy-one participants (48 female) were tested in two conditions each (deprivation baseline vs. glucose supplementation), performing tasks from different cognitive domains (memory and executive functioning). We found significant evidence for a correlation of deprivation baseline performance and CGS across domains (Corsi-Block-Tapping Task: r = -0.57, p < 0.001; Go-No-Go Task: r = 0.39, p = 0.001; word list recall: r = -0.50, p < 0.001). Moreover, individual CGS differed significantly between tasks (p = 0.018). Only in men, BMI was significantly related to CGS in a word recall paradigm (r = 0.49, p = 0.017). Our findings support the notion that the effects of glucose depend on CGS, task domain, and sex. The effort to reduce performance impairment (short-term) might sacrifice independence from external glucose (long term), possibly via declining blood glucose regulation. Therefore, CGS could be regarded as a candidate to enhance our understanding of the etiology of unhealthy eating.

Towards better microsleep predictions in fatigued drivers: exploring benefits of personality traits and IQ.

Fatigued driving is one of the main contributors to road traffic accidents. Poor sleep quality and lack of sleep negatively affect driving performance, and extreme states of fatigue can cause microsleep (i.e., short episodes of sleep with complete loss of awareness). Driver monitoring systems analyse biosignals (e.g., gaze, blinking, heart rate) and vehicle data (e.g., steering wheel movements, lane holding, acceleration) to detect states of fatigue and prevent accidents. We argue that inter-individual differences in personality, sensation seeking behaviour, and intelligence could improve microsleep prediction, in addition to sleepiness. We tested 144 male participants in a supervised driving track after 27 hours of sleep deprivation. More than 74% of drivers experienced microsleep, after an average driving time of 52 min. Overall, prediction models for microsleep vulnerability and driving time before microsleep were significantly improved by conscientiousness, sensation seeking and non-verbal IQ, in addition to situational sleepiness, as individual risk factors. Practitioner summary: This study offers valuable insights for the design of driver monitoring systems. The use of individual risk factors such as conscientiousness, sensation seeking, and non-verbal IQ can increase microsleep prediction. These findings may improve monitoring systems based solely on physiological signals (e.g., blinking, heart rate) and vehicle data (e.g., steering wheel movements, acceleration, cornering). Abbreviations: ADAC: Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil Club; ANOVA: analysis of variance; AIC: Akaike information criteria; CI: confidence interval; GPS: global positioning system; IQ: intelligence quotient; IQR: inter quartile range; KSS: Karolinska sleepiness scale; NEO-PI-R: revised NEO personality inventory; OLS: ordinary least squares; PSQI: Pittsburgh sleep quality index; SPM: standard progressive matrices; SSS: sensation seeking scale; WHO: World Health Organization.

Fixation-related NIRS indexes retinotopic occipital processing of parafoveal preview during natural reading.

While word frequency and predictability effects have been examined extensively, any evidence on interactive effects as well as parafoveal influences during whole sentence reading remains inconsistent and elusive. Novel neuroimaging methods utilize eye movement data to account for the hemodynamic responses of very short events such as fixations during natural reading. In this study, we used the rapid sampling frequency of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to investigate neural responses in the occipital and orbitofrontal cortex to word frequency and predictability. We observed increased activation in the right ventral occipital cortex when the fixated word N was of low frequency, which we attribute to an enhanced cost during saccade planning. Importantly, unpredictable (in contrast to predictable) low frequency words increased the activity in the left dorsal occipital cortex at the fixation of the preceding word N-1, presumably due to an upcoming breach of top-down modulated expectation. Opposite to studies that utilized a serial presentation of words (e.g. Hofmann et al., 2014), we did not find such an interaction in the orbitofrontal cortex, implying that top-down timing of cognitive subprocesses is not required during natural reading. We discuss the implications of an interactive parafoveal-on-foveal effect for current models of eye movements.

Eye movements in developing readers: From basic research to classroom application. Parts of symposium 7 at the 20th European Conference on Eye Movements in Alicante, September 21, 2019.

Eye-movement recording has made it possible to achieve a detailed understanding of oculomotor and cognitive behavior during reading and of changes in this behavior across the stages of reading development. Given that many students struggle to attain even basic reading skills, a logical extension of eye-movement research involves its applications in both the diagnostic and instructional areas of reading education. The focus of this symposium is on eye-movement research with potential implications for reading education. Christian Vorstius will review results from a large-scale longitudinal study that examined the development of spatial parameters in fixation patterns within three cohorts, ranging from elementary to early middle school, discussing an early development window and its potential influences on reading ability and orthography. Ronan Reilly and Xi Fan will present longitudinal data related to developmental changes in reading-related eye movements in Chinese. Their findings are indicative of increasing sensitivity to lexical predictability and sentence coherence. The authors suggest that delays in the emergence of these reading behaviors may signal early an increased risk of reading difficulty. Jochen Laubrock's presentation will focus on perceptual span development and explore dimensions of this phenomenon with potential educational implications, such as the modulation of perceptual span in relation to cognitive load, as well as preview effects during oral and silent reading --and while reading comic books. Video stream: https://vimeo.com/362645755.

Does Online Comprehension Monitoring Make a Unique Contribution to Reading Comprehension in Beginning Readers? Evidence from Eye Movements.

The goal was to investigate the nature of online comprehension monitoring, its predictors, and its relation to reading comprehension. Questions were concerned with (1) beginning readers' sensitivity to inconsistencies, (2) predictors of online comprehension monitoring, and (3) the relation of online comprehension monitoring to reading comprehension over and above word reading and listening comprehension. Using eye-tracking technology, online comprehension monitoring was measured as the amount of time spent rereading target implausible words and looking back at surrounding contexts. Results from 319 second graders revealed that children spent greater time fixating on inconsistent than consistent words and engaged in more frequent lookbacks. Comprehension monitoring was explained by both word reading and listening comprehension. However, comprehension monitoring did not uniquely predict reading comprehension after accounting for word reading and listening comprehension. These results provide insight into the nature of comprehension monitoring and its role in reading comprehension for beginning readers.

Readers in Adult Basic Education.

The present study explored the reading skills of a sample of 48 adults enrolled in a basic education program in northern Florida, United States. Previous research has reported on reading component skills for students in adult education settings, but little is known about eye movement patterns or their relation to reading skills for this population. In this study, reading component skills including decoding, language comprehension, and reading fluency are reported, as are eye movement variables for connected-text oral reading. Eye movement comparisons between individuals with higher and lower oral reading fluency revealed within- and between-subject effects for word frequency and word length as well as group and word frequency interactions. Bivariate correlations indicated strong relations between component skills of reading, eye movement measures, and both the Test of Adult Basic Education ( Reading subtest) and the Woodcock-Johnson III Diagnostic Reading Battery Passage Comprehension assessments. Regression analyses revealed the utility of decoding, language comprehension, and lexical activation time for predicting achievement on both the Woodcock Johnson III Passage Comprehension and the Test of Adult Basic Education Reading Comprehension.

A Comparison of Eye Movement Measures across Reading Efficiency Quartile Groups in Elementary, Middle, and High School Students in the U.S.

This cross-sectional study examined eye movements during reading across grades in stu-dents with differing levels of reading efficiency. Eye-movement recordings were obtained while students in grades 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 silently read normed grade-leveled texts with demonstrated comprehension. Recordings from students in each reading rate quartile at each grade level were compared to characterize differences in reading rate, number of fixations, number of regressions, and fixation durations. Comparisons indicated that stu-dents in higher reading rate quartiles made fewer fixations and regressions per word, and had shorter fixation durations. These indices of greater efficiency were also characteristic of students in upper as compared to lower grades, with two exceptions: (a) between grades 6 and 8, fixations and regressions increased while reading rates stagnated and fixation durations continued to decline, and (b) beyond grade 6 there was relatively little growth in the reading efficiency of students in the lower two reading rate quartiles. These results suggest that declines in fixation duration across grades may in part reflect broader matura-tional processes, while higher fixation and regression rates may distinguish students who continue to struggle with word recognition during their high school years.

A pilot study of quality of life in German prehospital emergency care physicians.

BACKGROUND: Quality of life in patients represents an important area of assessment. However, attention to health professionals should be equally important. The literature on the quality of life (QOL) of emergency physicians is scarce. This pilot study investigated QOL in emergency physicians in Germany. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study from January to June in 2015. We approached the German Association of Emergency Medicine Physicians and two of the largest recruitment agencies for emergency physicians in Germany and invited their members to participate. We used the WHO Q-BREF to obtain QOL scores in four domains that included physical, mental, social, and environmental health. RESULTS: The 478 German emergency physicians included in the study held board certifications in general medicine (n = 40; 8.4%), anesthesiology (n = 243; 50.8%), surgery (n = 63; 13.2%), internal medicine (n = 81; 17.0%), or others (n = 51; 10.7%). The women surveyed tended to report a better QOL but worse general health than the men. Regarding specific domains, women scored worse in physical health, particularly energy during everyday work (relative risk ratio [RRR]: 1.98 [1.21-3.24]). Both men and women scored worse in psychological health than general health, particularly young women. Women were also more likely to view their safety (RRR: 1.87 [1.07-3.28]) and living place (RRR: 2.51 [1.10-5.73]) as being poor than their male counterparts. CONCLUSION: QOL in German prehospital emergency care physicians is satisfactory for the included participants; however, there were some negative effects in the psychological health domain. This is particularly obvious in young female emergency physicians.

Individual differences in fifth graders' reading and language predict their comprehension monitoring development: An eye-movement study.

In this study, we investigated fifth-graders' (n=52) fall literacy, academic language, and motivation, and how these skills predicted fall and spring comprehension monitoring on an eye movement task. Comprehension monitoring was defined as the identification and repair of misunderstandings when reading text. In the eye movement task, children read two sentences; the second included either a plausible or implausible word in the context of the first sentence. Stronger readers had shorter reading times overall suggesting faster processing of text. Generally fifth-graders reacted to the implausible word (i.e., longer gaze duration on the implausible v. the plausible word, which reflects lexical access). Students with stronger academic language, compared to those with weaker academic language, generally spent more time re-reading the implausible target compared to the plausible target. This difference increased from fall to spring. Results support the centrality of academic language for meaning integration, setting standards of coherence, and utilizing comprehension repair strategies.

An eye movement based reading intervention in lexical and segmental readers with acquired dyslexia.

Due to their brain damage, aphasic patients with acquired dyslexia often rely to a greater extent on lexical or segmental reading procedures. Thus, therapy intervention is mostly targeted on the more impaired reading strategy. In the present work we introduce a novel therapy approach based on real-time measurement of patients' eye movements as they attempt to read words. More specifically, an eye movement contingent technique of stepwise letter de-masking was used to support sequential reading, whereas fixation-dependent initial masking of non-central letters stimulated a lexical (parallel) reading strategy. Four lexical and four segmental readers with acquired central dyslexia received our intensive reading intervention. All participants showed remarkable improvements as evident in reduced total reading time, a reduced number of fixations per word and improved reading accuracy. Both types of intervention led to item-specific training effects in all subjects. A generalisation to untrained items was only found in segmental readers after the lexical training. Eye movement analyses were also used to compare word processing before and after therapy, indicating that all patients, with one exclusion, maintained their preferred reading strategy. However, in several cases the balance between sequential and lexical processing became less extreme, indicating a more effective individual interplay of both word processing routes.

Contextual constraint and N + 2 preview effects in reading.

Extracting linguistic information from locations beyond the currently fixated word is a core component of skilled reading. Recent debate on this topic is focused on the question of whether useful linguistic information can be extracted from more than one (parafoveally visible) word to the right of a fixated word (N). The current study examined this issue through the use parafoveal previews with a short and high-frequency next (N + 1) word, as this should increase the opportunity for the extraction of useful information from the subsequent (N + 2) word. Pairs of N + 2 words were selected so that contextual constraint was either high or low. Using saccade contingent display manipulations, preview of a N + 2 target word during word N viewing consisted of either a visually dissimilar nonword or a word. The results revealed a substantial drop in fixation probability for word N + 1 when the N + 2 preview was masked with a nonword. Furthermore, the masking of word N + 2 influenced its viewing duration even when word N + 1 was fixated prior to word N + 2 viewing. These results provide compelling evidence for the view that the linguistic processing can encompass more than one word at a time.

Effects of acute alcohol intoxication on automated processing: evidence from the double-step paradigm.

Reflexive and voluntary levels of processing have been studied extensively with respect to possible impairments due to alcohol intoxication. This study examined alcohol effects at the 'automated' level of processing essential to many complex visual processing tasks (e.g., reading, visual search) that involve ongoing modifications or reprogramming of well-practiced routines. Data from 30 participants (16 male) were collected in two counterbalanced sessions (alcohol vs. no-alcohol control; mean breath alcohol concentration = 68 mg/dL vs. 0 mg/dL). Eye movements were recorded during a double-step task where 75% of trials involved two target stimuli in rapid succession (inter-stimulus interval [ISI]=40, 70, or 100 ms) so that they could elicit two distinct saccades or eye movements (double steps). On 25% of trials a single target appeared. Results indicated that saccade latencies were longer under alcohol. In addition, the proportion of single-step responses and the mean saccade amplitude (length) of primary saccades decreased significantly with increasing ISI. The key novel finding, however, was that the reprogramming time needed to cancel the first saccade and adjust saccade amplitude was extended significantly by alcohol. The additional time made available by prolonged latencies due to alcohol was not utilized by the saccade programming system to decrease the number of two-step responses. These results represent the first demonstration of specific alcohol-induced programming deficits at the automated level of oculomotor processing.

EyeMap: a software system for visualizing and analyzing eye movement data in reading.

We have developed EyeMap, a freely available software system for visualizing and analyzing eye movement data specifically in the area of reading research. As compared with similar systems, including commercial ones, EyeMap has more advanced features for text stimulus presentation, interest area extraction, eye movement data visualization, and experimental variable calculation. It is unique in supporting binocular data analysis for unicode, proportional, and nonproportional fonts and spaced and unspaced scripts. Consequently, it is well suited for research on a wide range of writing systems. To date, it has been used with English, German, Thai, Korean, and Chinese. EyeMap is platform independent and can also work on mobile devices. An important contribution of the EyeMap project is a device-independent XML data format for describing data from a wide range of reading experiments. An online version of EyeMap allows researchers to analyze and visualize reading data through a standard Web browser. This facility could, for example, serve as a front-end for online eye movement data corpora.

Specific visuomotor deficits due to alcohol intoxication: evidence from the pro- and antisaccade paradigms.

RATIONALE: Alcohol affects a variety of human behaviors, including visual perception and motor control. Although recent research has begun to explore mechanisms that mediate these changes, their exact nature is still not well understood. OBJECTIVES: The present study used two basic oculomotor tasks to examine the effect of alcohol on different levels of visual processing within the same individuals. A theoretical framework is offered to integrate findings across multiple levels of oculomotor control. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four healthy participants were asked to perform eye movements in reflexive (pro-) and voluntary (anti-) saccade tasks. In one of two counterbalanced sessions, performance was measured after alcohol administration (mean BrAC=69 mg%); the other served as a within-subjects no-alcohol comparison condition. RESULTS: Error rates were not influenced by alcohol intoxication in either task. However, there were significant effects of alcohol on saccade latency and peak velocity in both tasks. Critically, a specific alcohol-induced impairment (hypermetria) in saccade amplitudes was observed exclusively in the anti-saccade task. CONCLUSIONS: The saccade latency data strongly suggest that alcohol intoxication impairs temporal aspects of saccade generation, irrespective of the level of processing triggering the saccade. The absence of effects on anti-saccade errors calls for further research into the notion of alcohol-induced impairment of the ability to inhibit prepotent responses. Furthermore, the specific impairment of saccade amplitude in the anti-saccade task under alcohol suggests that higher level processes involved in the spatial remapping of target location in the absence of a visually specified saccade goal are specifically affected by alcohol intoxication.