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Accurate saccadic targeting is critical for efficient reading and is driven by the sensory input under the eye-gaze. Yet whether a reader's experience with the distributional properties of their written language also influences saccadic targeting is an open debate. This study of Russian sentence reading follows Cutter et al.'s (2017) study in English and presents readers with sentences consisting of words of the same length. We hypothesised that if the readers' experience matters as per discrete control account, Russian readers would produce longer saccades and farther landing positions than the ones produced by English readers. On the contrary, if the saccadic targeting is primarily driven by the immediate perceptual demands that override readers' experience as per the dynamic adjustment account, the saccades of Russian and English readers would be of the same length, resulting in similar landing positions. The results in both Cutter et al. and the present study provided evidence for the latter account: Russian readers showed rapid and accurate adjustment of saccade lengths and landing positions to the highly constrained input. Crucially, the saccade lengths and landing positions did not differ between English and Russian readers even in the cross-linguistically length-matched stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given experience in cluttered but stable visual environments, our eye‐movements form stereotyped routines that sample task‐relevant locations, while not mixing‐up routines between similar task‐settings. Both dopamine signaling and mindfulness have been posited as factors that influence the formation of such routines, yet quantification of their impact remains to be tested in healthy humans. Over two sessions, participants searched through grids of doors to find hidden targets, using a gaze‐contingent display. Within each session, door scenes appeared in either one of two colors, with each color signaling a differing set of likely target locations. We derived measures for how well target locations were learned (target‐accuracy), how routine were sets of eye‐movements (stereotypy), and the extent of interference between the two scenes (setting‐accuracy). Participants completed two sessions, where they were administered either levodopa (dopamine precursor) or placebo (vitamin C), under double‐blind counterbalanced conditions. Dopamine and trait mindfulness (assessed by questionnaire) interacted to influence both target‐accuracy and stereotypy. Increasing dopamine improved accuracy and reduced stereotypy for high mindfulness scorers, but induced the opposite pattern for low mindfulness scorers. Dopamine also disrupted setting‐accuracy invariant to mindfulness. Our findings show that mindfulness modulates the impact of dopamine on the target‐accuracy and stereotypy of eye‐movement routines, whereas increasing dopamine promotes interference between task‐settings, regardless of mindfulness. These findings provide a link between non‐human and human models regarding the influence of dopamine on the formation of task‐relevant eye‐movement routines and provide novel insights into behavior‐trait factors that modulate the use of experience when building adaptive repertoires. Using a double‐blind L‐Dopa intervention with healthy participants, we show that dopamine interacts with an individual's level of mindfulness to influence routine formation and cognitive control. These findings are the first empirical test of the theoretical suggestion that mindfulness and dopamine operate on the same underlying mechanisms that support task learning and habit formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of reading, readers can process information not only within the fixated region, known as the fovea, but also in the parafoveal region to the right of the fovea. While the parafoveal semantic preview effect has been confirmed in eye-tracking experiments using boundary techniques, research on how the parafoveal preview effects differ depending on the degree of semantic relatedness is still limited. This study investigates the parafoveal preview effects as a function of semantic relatedness with the target word. The experiment utilized Korean-Chinese bilinguals and presented mixed-language sentences as experimental stimuli. Four parafoveal preview conditions were applied to the target words in each sentence: (1) Korean identical condition, where the parafoveal word was the same as the target word (e.g., “나라,” meaning “country” in English), (2) Chinese synonymous condition, where the parafoveal word had the same meaning as the target word (e.g., “国 家,” also meaning “country” in English), (3) Chinese semantically related condition, where the parafoveal word was semantically related to the target word (e.g., “政权,” meaning “political power” in English), and (4) Chinese unrelated condition, where the parafoveal word was semantically unrelated to the target word (e.g., “围 裙,” meaning “apron” in English). The study explored the parafoveal preview effect in terms of the degree of semantic association with the target word. We found the most pronounced preview effect in conditions where the preview and the target word shared the same meaning, and we also observed preview effects in conditions where the semantic relatedness with the target word was relatively weak. This study suggests that the degree of semantic relatedness between the parafoveal preview word and the target word can influence readers’ reading processes. It contributes to a better understanding of readers’ eye movements and comprehension processes, with potential implications for the development of effective reading strategies and educational methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to struggle with reading comprehension, often resulting in difficulties with inference generation. While most of the previous research has focused on the product of comprehension, we report a preliminary validation of an experimental reading task in English to measure, by means of eye-movements, the time course of generating consistent and inconsistent inferences during reading. The task was tested with a group of 12 students with ASD (age range: 10–15) who showed accuracy differences between inference and control conditions. Participants spent longer reading in the inconsistent than control condition regarding go past times and second pass times and made more regressions into the target and post-target regions, but these differences were not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People attract infants' and adults' gaze when presented on a computer screen. However, in live social situations, adults inhibit their gaze at strangers to avoid sending inappropriate social signals. Such inhibition of gaze has never been directly investigated in infants. The current preregistered study measured gaze and neural responses (EEG alpha power) to a confederate in a live social situation compared to a video of this confederate. Adults looked less at the live confederate than at the video of the confederate, although their neural responses suggest that they were overall equally attentive in both situations. Infants also looked less at the live confederate than at the video of the confederate, with similar neural response patterns. The gaze difference between live social and video situations increased with age. The study shows that young infants are already sensitive to social context and show decreased gaze to strangers in social situations. Research Highlights: This study shows that infants and adults look more at a video of a stranger than at a stranger that is present live in a social situation.Neural responses suggest that adults are equally attentive in both live and video situations but inhibit their gaze at the stranger in live social situations.Infants show a similar pattern of shorter gaze at a stranger who is present in person than at a video of this stranger.The study shows that gaze in infants and adults may diverge from cognitive processes measured through EEG, highlighting the importance of combining behavioural and neural measures in natural interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of British and Chinese culture on the viewing of paintings from Western and East Asian traditions was explored in an old/new discrimination task. Accuracy data were considered alongside signal detection measures of sensitivity and bias. The results showed participant culture and painting tradition interacted but only with respect to response bias and not sensitivity. Eye movements were also recorded during encoding and discrimination. Paintings were split into regions of interest defined by faces, or the theme and context to analyze the eye movement data. With respect to the eye movement data, the results showed that a match between participant culture and painting tradition increased the viewing of faces in paintings at the expense of the viewing of other locations, an effect interpreted as a manifestation of the Other Race Effect on the viewing of paintings. There was, however, no evidence of broader influence of culture on the eye movements made to paintings as might be expected if culture influenced the allocation of attention more generally. Taken together, these findings suggest culture influences the viewing of paintings but only in response to challenges to the encoding of faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidentiality encodes how a speaker has access to the information contained in his/her proposition. It has been shown that some 'evidential language' speakers make a deliberate choice of evidentials while telling lies (Aikhenvald 2004). In this study, we recruited 40 native speakers of Turkish, an 'evidential language', to judge statements with evidentials using an eye-movement-monitoring-during-reading study with an end-of-sentence deception detection task. The participants read sentences with four conditions, containing a direct or indirect evidential form either compatible or incompatible with the given information source. Our results show that the indirect evidential condition was detected as a lie more often than the direct evidential condition. Readers had the tendency to judge stimulus material with source-evidentiality mismatch to be untruthful. These findings were mirrored in the eye-movement data, as we found gaze duration to be longer at the critical verb region for indirect evidential and mismatch conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the semantic preview effect in the parafoveal processing of words that are presented in advance in the parafoveal area ahead of the fixation point, benefiting word processing in the fovea. Using the boundary technique in eye-tracking experiments, 25 Chinese-Korean bilinguals, whose native language is Chinese, were presented with 96 sentences that contained a mix of Chinese and Korean, where Korean words were associated with Chinese characters semantically. The study aimed to determine whether a semantic preview effect could be extracted in reading. The experimental sentences were divided into four conditions: the same Korean native word condition (e.g., “나라” meaning “country”), the same Korean word with semantic equivalent in Chinese condition (e.g., “국가” meaning “country”), the same Chinese condition with semantic equivalent in Korean (e.g., “国家” meaning “country”), and the unrelated Chinese condition to the target word (e.g., “围裙” meaning “apron”). The results showed a preview effect in both the Korean word and Chinese word conditions, with a larger preview effect observed in the Chinese word condition compared to the Korean word condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British and Chinese participants viewed a set of Western representational paintings (henceforth paintings) for later identification in a yes/no discrimination task. Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed the paintings with each painting split into face, theme of the painting and its context regions of interest (ROIs). British participants performed the discrimination task more accurately than Chinese participants. Eye movement data were first analyzed to confirm reliable individual differences in the proportion of fixations made to ROIs, and second, for evidence of a cross-cultural influence in focus on ROIs over the time-course of viewing. The results confirmed that individual differences in the proportion of fixations made to ROIs were reliable across a subset of paintings for both British and Chinese. In the context of the present study, this finding was a precondition to explore the time-course of fixations across ROIs. With respect to the time-course of fixations across ROIs, Chinese participants focused more on the theme, and less on faces (and vice-versa for British participants), in a period starting around 2 s after the onset of viewing. Earlier in viewing there was evidence that Chinese participants had an increased focus on the context. The results (a) extend the findings reported by Trawiński, Zang, et al. (2021) on the impact of the Other Race Effect on the viewing of paintings; (b) show the time course associated with a more general cross-cultural influence on scene perception (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perspective-taking plays an important role in daily life, allowing consideration of other people's perspectives and viewpoints. This study used a large sample of 265 community-based participants (aged 20-86 years) to examine changes in perspective-taking abilities--a component of "Theory of Mind"--across adulthood, and how these changes may relate to individual differences in executive functions at different ages. Participants completed a referential-communication task (the "Director" task) while behavioral responses and eye movements were recorded, along with four measures of executive functions (inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning). Results revealed a quadratic fit of age in egocentric errors; performance on the task plateaued between 20 to -37 years old but showed a substantial decline from -38 years onward (i.e., increased egocentric errors). A similar pattern was established in eye-movement measures, demonstrating that advancing age led to a decrease in efficient attention orientation to a target. In other words, older adults were more distracted by a hidden competitor object (egocentric interference) and were therefore delayed in orienting their attention to the correct target object. Mediation analyses revealed that executive functions partially mediated the effect of age on perspective-taking abilities. Importantly, however, the relationship between age and egocentric bias in task performance remained significant when controlling for changes in executive functions, indicating a decline in social cognition abilities with advancing age that was independent of age-related declines in more domain-general abilities, such as executive functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Reading difficulties are commonly reported in Parkinson's disease (PD). So far, only a few studies have assessed reading in PD, most of them confirming a different pattern in patients compared with healthy populations. Impaired oculomotor control is an early feature of PD. Cognitive deficits, on the other hand, may appear early, but they are most prominent at later stages. Although these two factors are thought to be responsible for the alterations in reading performance, it is unclear how each factor contributes to them. Objectives: To evaluate eye movements during reading in PD and healthy controls (HCs). Methods: Data from 42 HCs (36% men) and 48 patients with PD (67% men) at Hoehn and Yahr stages ≤3 were analyzed. PD participants were further divided into 2 groups based on their Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score using a cutoff of ≥26. Eye movements were recorded with Tobii Pro Spectrum, a screen‐based eye tracker with a sampling rate of 1200 Hz. Results: PD participants performed fewer fixations per second (P = 0.033), with a longer mean (P = 0.037) and standard deviation fixation duration (P = 0.033) than HC, and further analysis showed that only patients with a lower MoCA score performed worse than HCs. Reading parameters were weakly associated with MoCA scores, irrespective of age and education. Conclusion: Changes in the reading pattern of PD patients are probably attributed to cognitive rather than pure oculomotor alterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preterm birth is associated with weaknesses in reading skills that are usually less severe than those of children with dyslexia. To understand the characteristics of reading processes in preterm children, we adopted a cross-population and multi-modal approach comparing eye movements in reading tasks among three groups: children with preterm birth, children with a diagnosis of dyslexia, and children with typical development. The study involved 78 participants (10.5 years). Eye movements (number and duration of fixations, amplitude and number of saccades, number of regressions) were recorded during the silent reading of two texts; cognitive and reading standardized tasks were also administered. Children with dyslexia had more fixations and more frequent and smaller saccades compared to the preterm group and children with typical development. They also showed more regressions compared to the control group. Preterm children showed shorter fixations compared to the other groups. Cognitive and reading standardized tasks confirmed severe delays in reading in children with dyslexia and some weaknesses in text reading speed and comprehension in preterm children. These results are discussed with reference to candidate mechanisms that underlie reading processes in preterm children and considering possible implications for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing numbers of international students enter university education via English language bridging programs. Much research has overlooked the nature of second language reading development during a bridging program, focusing instead on the development of literacy skills of international students who already meet the language requirement for undergraduate admission. We report a longitudinal eye-movement study assessing English passage reading efficiency and comprehension in 405 Chinese-speaking bridging program students. Incoming IELTS reading scores were used as an index of baseline reading ability. Linear mixed-effects regression models fitted to global eye-movement measures and reading comprehension indicated that despite initial between-subjects differences, within-subject change at each ability level progressed at the same rate, following parallel growth trajectories. Therefore, there was significant overall reading progress during the bridging program, but no evidence that the gap between low and high ability readers either closed or widened over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manual classification of eye-movements is used in research and as a basis for comparison with automatic algorithms in the development phase. However, human classification will not be useful if it is unreliable and unrepeatable. Therefore, it is important to know what factors might influence and enhance the accuracy and reliability of human classification of eye-movements. In this report we compare three datasets of human manual classification, two from earlier datasets and one, our own dataset, which we present here for the first time. For inter-rater reliability, we assess both the event-level F1-score and sample-level Cohen's κ, across groups of raters. The report points to several possible influences on human classification reliability: eye-tracker quality, use of head restraint, characteristics of the recorded subjects, the availability of detailed scoring rules, and the characteristics and training of the raters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atypical visual and social attention has often been associated with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and with the broader autism phenotype. Atypical social attention is of particular research interest given the importance of facial expressions for social communication, with faces tending to attract and hold attention in neurotypical individuals. In autism, this is not necessarily so, where there is debate about the temporal differences in the ability to disengage attention from a face. Thus, we have used eye-tracking to record saccadic latencies as a measure of time to disengage attention from a central task-irrelevant face before orienting to a newly presented peripheral nonsocial target during a gap-overlap task. Neurotypical participants with higher or lower autism-like traits (AT) completed the task that included central stimuli with varied expressions of facial emotion as well as an inverted face. High AT participants demonstrated faster saccadic responses to detect the nonsocial target than low AT participants when disengaging attention from a face. Furthermore, faster saccadic responses were recorded when comparing disengagement from upright to inverted faces in low AT but not in high AT participants. Together, these results extend findings of atypical social attention disengagement in autism and highlight how differences in attention to faces in the broader autism phenotype can lead to apparently superior task performance under certain conditions. Specifically, autism traits were linked to faster attention orienting to a nonsocial target due to the reduced attentional hold of the task irrelevant face stimuli. The absence of an inversion effect in high AT participants also reinforces the suggestion that they process upright or inverted faces similarly, unlike low AT participants for whom inverted faces are thought to be less socially engaging, thus allowing faster disengagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major functions of our brain is to process spatial information and to make this information available to our motor systems to interact successfully with the environment. Numerous studies over the past decades and even centuries have investigated, how our central nervous system deals with this challenge. Spatial information can be derived from vision. We see, where the cup of coffee stands at the breakfast table or where the un-mute-button of our video-conference tool is. However, this is always just a snapshot, because the location of the projection of the cup or the un-mute-button shifts across the retina by each eye movement, i.e., 2–3 times per second. So, where exactly in space are objects located? And what signals guide self-motion and navigation through our environment? While also other sensory signals (vestibular, tactile, auditory, even smell) can help us localize objects in space and guide our navigation, here, we will focus on the dominant sense in primates: vision. We will review (i) how visual information is processed to eventually result in space perception, (ii) how this perception is modulated by action, especially eye movements, at the behavioral and at the neural level, and (iii) how spatial representations relate to other encodings of magnitude, i.e., time and number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an eye-tracking experiment, we investigated the processing of Farsi object and subject relative clauses. Since restrictive relative clauses in Farsi are marked and distinguished clearly by the enclitic particle ی /− i / attached to the head noun, we also compared the processing of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Seifi (2021) conducted a corpus analysis that showed that object relative clauses are in general less frequent than subject relative clauses. However, while non-restrictive relative clauses are predominantly subject relative clauses, restrictive relative clauses are more balanced in the corpus. In an eye-tracking experiment, Farsi speakers processed restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses differently. In non-restrictive relative clauses, the effect is similar to that found in most other languages: a clear processing delay in object relative clauses, compared to subject relative clauses. This effect was visible both at the relative clause verb and at the end of the matrix sentence. In restrictive relative clauses, on the other hand, the picture is different: Just as for the non-restrictive relative clauses object relative clauses had long reading times in the relative clause, but at the end of the sentence a reverse effect was found. Thus, the processing data reflected the pattern found in the corpus. We discuss these findings in terms of the distinct functions of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. • There is an asymmetry in the processing of the Farsi object and subject relative clauses. • This asymmetry is larger in non-restrictive relative clauses than in restrictive relative clauses. • In Farsi, the readers rely on morphological cues to disambiguate the sentence. • The asymmetry in processing mirrored the frequency distribution of relative clauses in Farsi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distracted biking can have serious repercussions for the rider such as accidents. The purpose of the present experiment was to determine the effect of visually monitoring two parameters, the cadence, and the heart rate on a bike computer fixed on a racing bike, and simultaneously detect hazardous traffic situations. Individuals (n = 20) were instructed to ride a racing bike that was fitted onto a roller trainer. After conducting a bicycle step test to assess the maximal heart rate (HF max) , participants were assigned to a within subject-design on a separate day. They were instructed to perform the riding task in two single-task conditions (only watching the traffic at the video with occluded or without occluded bike computer), two multi-tasking conditions (monitoring the cadence of 70 RPM or 90 RPM, monitoring the heart rate, and observing the traffic) and one control condition (no instructions). Percentage dwell time of the eye movements, the constant error from the target cadence, keeping the heart rate in an interval of 50% - 70% of the HF max , and percentage of the recognized hazard traffic situations were analyzed. The analysis indicated that monitoring the parameters on the bike computer induced no significant decline in perceived hazardous traffic situations. • monitoring a bike computer increased the processing of visual information. • did not impair the visual behavior of traffic hazard perception. • traffic has a high priority for the cyclist on a racing bike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of how the mind can retain sequentially organized information has a long research tradition that remains unresolved. While various computational models propose a mechanism of binding serial order information to position markers, the representational nature and processes that operate on these position markers are not clear. Recent behavioral work suggests that space is used to mark positions in serial order and that this process is governed by spatial attention. Based on the assumption that brain areas controlling spatial attention are also involved in saccadic planning, we continuously tracked the eye-movements as a direct measure of the spatial attention during retrieval from a verbal WM sequence. Participants memorized a sequence of auditory numbers. During retention, they heard a number-cue that did or did not belong to the memorized set. After this number-cue, a target-beep could be presented to which they had to respond if the number-cue belonged to the memorized sequence. In Experiment 1, the target-beep was either presented to the left or right ear, and in Experiment 2 bilaterally (removing any spatial aspect). We tested the hypothesis that systematic eye-movements are made when people retrieve items of sequences of auditory words and found that the retrieval of begin items resulted in leftward eye-movements and the retrieval of end items in rightward eye-movements. These observations indicate that the oculomotor system is also involved in the serial order processes in verbal WM thereby providing a promising novel approach to get insight into abstract cognitive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about how memory resources are allocated in natural vision across sequential eye movements and fixations, as people actively extract information from the visual environment. Here, we used gaze-contingent eye tracking to examine how such resources are dynamically reallocated from old to new information entering working memory. As participants looked sequentially at items, we interrupted the process at different times by extinguishing the display as a saccade was initiated. After a brief interval, participants were probed on one of the items that had been presented. Paradoxically, across all experiments, the final (unfixated) saccade target was recalled more precisely when more items had previously been fixated, that is, with longer rather than shorter saccade sequences. This result is difficult to explain on current models of working memory because recall error, even for the final item, is typically higher as memory load increases. The findings could however be accounted for by a model that describes how resources are dynamically reallocated on a moment-by-moment basis. During each saccade, the target is encoded by consuming a proportion of currently available resources from a limited working memory, as well as by reallocating resources away from previously encoded items. These findings reveal how working memory resources are shifted across memoranda in active vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite schizophrenia (SZ) is characterized by a high psychopathological heterogeneity, the underlying psychological mechanisms that result in different clinical profiles are unclear. This study examined the cognitive processing of emotional faces (angry, happy, neutral, and sad) by means of assessing inhibitory control (antisaccade task) and attentional engagement (prosaccade task) with the eye-tracking paradigm. Firstly, two clinical SZ subgroups classified according to the predominance of positive (PSZ; n = 20) or negative symptoms (NSZ; n = 34) and a control group of 32 individuals were compared. Secondly, the association between prosaccade and antisaccade measurements and the severity of positive and negative symptoms were analyzed. The PSZ group showed slower antisaccades when angry faces were displayed, and higher positive symptoms were associated with slower prosaccade latencies to ones. Conversely, the NSZ group made overall slower prosaccades with an emotional advantage for angry faces, and higher negative symptoms were associated with faster antisaccade latencies to ones. Hence, whereas positive SZ profile is related to a lack of attentional engagement and an impaired inhibitory control to threatening information; negative SZ profile is linked to a lack of attentional engagement to faces, mainly with non-threat ones, and with an advantage to ignore distracting threatening stimuli. These findings support affective information-processing theories suggesting a hypersensitivity to threat for positive SZ profiles, and a desensitization to socio-emotional information for negative ones. Consequently, characterizing psychological mechanisms of SZ may allow improving current treatments to threat management when positive symptoms are predominant, or emotion sensitization when negative symptoms prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report two offline and two eye-movement experiments examining non-native (L2) sentence processing during and after reanalysis of temporarily ambiguous sentences like "While Mary dressed the baby laughed happily". Such sentences cause reanalysis at the main clause verb ("laughed"), as the temporarily ambiguous noun phrase ("the baby") may initially be misanalysed as the direct object of the subordinate clause verb ("dressed"). The offline experiments revealed that L2ers have difficulty reanalysing temporarily ambiguous sentences with a greater persistence of the initially assigned misinterpretation than native (L1) speakers. In the eye-movement experiments, we found that L2ers complete reanalysis similarly to L1ers but fail to fully erase the memory trace of the initially assigned interpretation. Our results suggested that the source of L2 reanalysis difficulty is a failure to erase the initially assigned misinterpretation from memory rather than a failure to conduct syntactic reanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading saccades that occur within a single line of text are guided by the size of letters. However, readers occasionally need to make longer saccades (known as return-sweeps) that take their eyes from the end of one line of text to the beginning of the next. In this study, we tested whether return-sweep saccades are also guided by font size information and whether this guidance depends on visual acuity of the return-sweep target area. To do this, we manipulated the font size of letters (0.29 vs 0.39° per character) and the length of the first line of text (16 vs 26°). The larger font resulted in return-sweeps that landed further to the right of the line start and in a reduction of under-sweeps compared to the smaller font. This suggests that font size information is used when programming return-sweeps. Return-sweeps in the longer line condition landed further to the right of the line start and the proportion of under-sweeps increased compared to the short line condition. This likely reflects an increase in saccadic undershoot error with the increase in intended saccade size. Critically, there was no interaction between font size and line length. This suggests that when programming return-sweeps, the use of font size information does not depend on visual acuity at the saccade target. Instead, it appears that readers rely on global typographic properties of the text in order to maintain an optimal number of characters to the left of their first fixation on a new line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel or unexpected sounds that deviate from an otherwise repetitive sequence of the same sound cause behavioural distraction. Recent work has suggested that distraction also occurs during reading as fixation durations increased when a deviant sound was presented at the fixation onset of words. The present study tested the hypothesis that this increase in fixation durations occurs due to saccadic inhibition. This was done by manipulating the temporal onset of sounds relative to the fixation onset of words in the text. If novel sounds cause saccadic inhibition, they should be more distracting when presented during the second half of fixations when saccade programming usually takes place. Participants read single sentences and heard a 120 ms sound when they fixated five target words in the sentence. On most occasions (p =.9), the same sine wave tone was presented ("standard"), while on the remaining occasions (p =.1) a new sound was presented ("novel"). Critically, sounds were played, on average, either during the first half of the fixation (0 ms delay) or during the second half of the fixation (120 ms delay). Consistent with the saccadic inhibition hypothesis (SIH), novel sounds led to longer fixation durations in the 120 ms compared to the 0 ms delay condition. However, novel sounds did not generally influence the execution of the subsequent saccade. These results suggest that unexpected sounds have a rapid influence on saccade planning, but not saccade execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise is intuitively thought to interfere with perceptual learning; However, human and machine learning studies suggest that, in certain contexts, variability may reduce overfitting and improve generalizability. Whereas previous studies have examined the effects of variability in learned stimuli or tasks, it is hitherto unknown what are the effects of variability in the temporal environment. Here, we examined this question in two groups of adult participants (N = 40) presented with visual targets at either random or fixed temporal routines and then tested on the same type of targets at a new nearly-fixed temporal routine. Findings reveal that participants of the random group performed better and adapted quicker following a change in the timing routine, relative to participants of the fixed group. Corroborated with eye-tracking and computational modeling, these findings suggest that prior exposure to temporal variability promotes the formation of new temporal expectations and enhances generalizability in a dynamic environment. We conclude that noise plays an important role in promoting perceptual learning in the temporal domain: rather than interfering with the formation of temporal expectations, noise enhances them. This counterintuitive effect is hypothesized to be achieved through eliminating overfitting and promoting generalizability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In soccer, it is relevant to understand the roles of Systems 1 (intuitive) and 2 (deliberative) in perceptual-cognitive processes and how they influence response time when making decisions. The aim of this study was to analyse how response time in decision making managed by Systems 1 and 2 is associated to the perceptual-cognitive processes of young soccer players. Ninety young soccer players participated. Perceptual-cognitive processes were assessed through visual search strategies, cognitive effort, and verbal reports. Participants wore a mobile-eye tracking system while viewing 11-a-side match play video-based soccer simulations. Response time in decision making was used to create two sub-groups: faster and slower decision-makers. Results indicated that players with faster response time in decision making employed more fixations of shorter duration, displayed less cognitive effort, as well as a greater number of thought processes associated with planning. These results reinforce that there are differences in the way of using the perceptive-cognitive processes from the priority system in the decision-making process. It is concluded that faster decision making, managed by System 1, implies greater ability to employ visual search strategies and to process information, thus enabling increased cognitive efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incremental language processing means that listeners confront temporary ambiguity about how to structure the input, which can generate misinterpretations. In four "visual-world" experiments, we tested whether engaging cognitive control – which detects and resolves conflict – assists revision during comprehension. We recorded listeners' eye-movements and actions while following instructions that were ripe for misanalysis. In Experiments 1 and 3, sentences followed trials from a nonverbal conflict task that manipulated cognitive-control engagement, to test its impact on the ability to revise. To isolate conflict-driven effects of cognitive-control on comprehension, we manipulated attention in a non-conflict task in Experiments 2 and 4. We observed fewer comprehension errors, and earlier revision, when cognitive control (more than attention) was elicited on an immediately preceding trial. These results extend previous correlations between cognitive control and language processing by revealing the influence of domain-general cognitive-control engagement on the temporal unfolding of error-revision processes during language comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: How does domain expertise influence dynamic visual search? Previous studies of visual search often use abstract search arrays that are devoid of applied context, with comparatively few studies exploring applied naturalistic and dynamic settings. The current research adds to this literature by examining lifeguard drowning‐detection across two studies using naturalistic, dynamic search tasks. Behavioural responses and eye‐movement data were recorded as participants watched staged video clips and attempted to identify if a swimmer was drowning. The results demonstrate lifeguard superiority in response times to drowning events, compared to non‐lifeguards. No differences between lifeguard and non‐lifeguard eye‐movements were noted however. This suggests that the experiential benefit in response times results from other underlying processes, rather than any scanning benefits. This research highlights the complex nature of naturalistic and dynamic searches, while demonstrating the robust nature of simulated videos in producing experience effects in visual search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous psycholinguistic studies that compared the time course of interpretation for pragmatic some and literal all have returned mixed results. In particular, a delayed pragmatic some has been found in some studies but not in others. We explain these conflicting findings in terms of factors which are independent of incremental semantic/pragmatic interpretation. Two offline experiments provide evidence of the effect of these factors. Three visual-world studies showed that they influence participants' eye movements in online comprehension. We introduce a new measure for investigating the time course of scalar inference. This new measure allows us to reason about the time course question based on the difference in verification procedures between numbers and quantifiers. Results from our visual-world studies suggest that deriving the pragmatic interpretation is not delayed relative to the semantic interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Task-irrelevant background sound can disrupt performance of visually based cognitive tasks. The cross-modal breakdown of attentional selectivity in the context of reading was addressed using analyses of eye movements. Moreover, the study addressed whether task-sensitivity to distraction via background speech on reading was modulated by the cognitive demands of the focal task. Two randomly-assigned groups of native Chinese participants read the same set of Chinese experimental sentences while being exposed to meaningful speech, meaningless (foreign) speech, or silence. For one group, participants were instructed to judge whether the sentences made sense (i.e., semantic acceptability task); for another, participants were instructed to detect whether the sentences contained a noncharacter (i.e., noncharacter detection task). Results showed no significant effect across sound conditions for the noncharacter detection task. For the semantic acceptability task, however, there was a substantial disruptive effect of the meaningfulness of the speech. Compared with reading with meaningless speech or reading in silence, the meaningful speech increased numbers of fixations, regressions, regression path, and total reading times. These results suggest that the disruption of reading by background speech is jointly dependent on the nature of the speech and the task process deployed, thereby favoring an Interference-by-Process account over Interference-by-Content and Attentional Diversion accounts of distraction to reading by background sound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music sight-reading is a valuable skill that eludes and frustrates many musicians. Techniques for teaching sight-reading are varied, with teachers mostly falling back on personal experience or simply hoping that, somehow, the penny will drop for the student. This study reports on a survey of the music learning and playing habits of expert and non-expert piano sight-readers. Pianists were categorised as 'experts' according to their ability to perfectly perform a 6th Grade AMEB (Australian Music Examinations Board) sight-reading assessment piece. This grouping was determined by the analysis of eye movement patterns as pianists performed various sight-reading tasks (Arthur 2017). The data show significant differences in musical training and performance experiences between the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When reading, can the next word in the sentence (word n + 1) influence how you read the word you are currently looking at (word n)? Serial models of sentence reading state that this generally should not be the case, whereas parallel models predict that this should be the case. Here we focus on perhaps the simplest and the strongest Parafoveal‐on‐Foveal (PoF) manipulation: word n + 1 is either the same as word n or a different word. Participants read sentences for comprehension and when their eyes left word n, the repeated or unrelated word at position n + 1 was swapped for a word that provided a syntactically correct continuation of the sentence. We recorded electroencephalogram and eye‐movements, and time‐locked the analysis of fixation‐related potentials (FRPs) to fixation of word n. We found robust PoF repetition effects on gaze durations on word n, and also on the initial landing position on word n. Most important is that we also observed significant effects in FRPs, reaching significance at 260 ms post‐fixation of word n. Repetition of the target word n at position n + 1 caused a widely distributed reduced negativity in the FRPs. Given the timing of this effect, we argue that it is driven by orthographic processing of word n + 1, while readers were still looking at word n, plus the spatial integration of orthographic information extracted from these two words in parallel. A hotly debated issue in reading research concerns the serial versus parallel nature of word identification processes. Evidence in favor of parallel processing has been criticized because it has often been obtained with artificial reading paradigms. Here we show that fixation‐related potentials elicited by a target word embedded in a normal sentence are impacted by the nature of the word immediately to the right of the fixated target word (n), and that this impact became significant 260 ms after fixation of word n. This is in line with parallel orthographic processing across adjacent words during sentence reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we maintain information about spatial configurations in mind? Many working memory (WM) models assume that rehearsal processes are used to counteract forgetting in WM. Here, we investigated the contributions of gaze-based and attention-based rehearsal for protecting spatial representations from time-based forgetting. Participants memorized 6 locations selected from a grid of 30 scattered dots. Memory was tested after 1.5 or 4.5 s, and this interval was either blank or the grid remained onscreen (which is assumed to provide rehearsal support). In 2 experiments, we monitored eye movements during the retention phase, or asked participants to fixate the screen center. In 3 subsequent experiments, we tested spatial WM under dual-task conditions inhibiting shifts of visuospatial attention or central attention to the memoranda. Memory was better and more resistant to time-based forgetting in the grid than blank condition. Recording of fixations showed more frequent and efficient gaze-based rehearsal in the presence of the grid. Fixations toward distractor locations occurred at a similar frequency in the blank and grid conditions, and it did not predict incorrect recalls. Inhibition of eye-movements or shifts of visuospatial attention impaired memory overall, but it did not change the grid benefit nor the rate of time-based forgetting. In contrast, distracting central attention increased time-based forgetting regardless of grid presence. These results indicate that (a) the grid benefit is only partially explained by rehearsal; (b) gaze-errors (i.e., distractor fixations) do not lead to more forgetting; and (c) the maintenance of spatial representations over time depends on central processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical notion of 'construal' captures the idea that the way in which we describe a scene reflects our conceptualization of it. Relying on the concept of ception – which conjoins conception and perception – we operationalized construal and employed a Visual World Paradigm to establish which aspects of linguistic scene description modulate visual scene perception, thereby affecting event conception. By analysing viewing behaviour after alternating ways of describing location (prepositions), agentivity (active/passive voice) and transfer (NP/PP datives), we found that the linguistic construal of a scene affects its spontaneous visual perception in two ways: either by determining the order in which the components of a scene are accessed or by modulating the distribution of attention over the components, making them more or less salient than they naturally are. We also found evidence for the existence of a cline in the construal effect with stronger expressive differences, such as the prepositional manipulation, inducing more prominent changes in visual perception than the dative manipulation. We discuss the claims language can lay to affecting visual information uptake and hence conceptualization of a static scene in the light of these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel, self-calibrating screen-perimeter is evaluated (IPS panel with integrated photometer). • Test performance was compared to full, external calibration and also the clinical gold-standard. • In 32 healthy observers, the perimeter was as accurate and reliable as the gold-standard. • It was also sensitive enough to detecting normal variations in sensitivity across the visual field. • Self-calibrating screens may provide a low-cost alternative to current gold-standard perimeters. This study evaluated the feasibility of using a 'self-calibrating' display (EIZO CG277) to perform screen-based threshold perimetry. Such displays incorporate their own integrated photometer, so could potentially be used 'straight out of the box', without the need for time-consuming and costly luminance calibration by skilled experts. Concerns remain, however, due to the fact that the internal calibration of such devices is imperfect, and lingering doubts regarding the accuracy of screen-based perimetry in general. To evaluate such a system, automated static threshold perimetry was performed in thirty-two normal-sighted adults. In one condition, participants performed a novel screen-based perimetry test, for which the screen was calibrated extensively using traditional photometric techniques/equipment. In a second condition, the same test was performed, but the display was calibrated using only the screen's integrated photometer (and assuming uniformity across the display). For reference, participants also completed a traditional visual-field assessment using a Humphrey Field Analyzer (HFA). All three tests were performed twice to assess test-retest repeatability (six tests total). The results showed no differences when comparing screen-based perimetric measurements made with internal self-calibration vs full manual calibration (either in terms of mean sensitivity, pointwise sensitivity, test-retest repeatability, or test duration). Furthermore, the accuracy and precision of both were indistinguishable from the current gold standard (HFA), although the HFA was approximately two minutes (~30%) faster. These results indicate that self-calibrating commercial monitors can be used to perform screen-based perimetry almost as well as current clinical devices, and without the need for any specialized knowledge or equipment to setup or maintain. This could facilitate perimetric testing in currently hard-to-reach settings, such as community centers, stroke wards, homes, rural locations, or developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently a debate about the relationship between feature-based attention (FBA) and visual working memory (VWM). One theory proposes that the 2 constructs should be synthesized into a single concept (Kiyonaga & Egner, 2013). In this unified theory, VWM is defined as attention directed toward internal representations that competes with attention for a shared limited resource. Contrary to this account, it has been reported that only overt attention shifts (saccades), but not covert attention shifts, interfere with VWM (Tas, Luck, & Hollingworth, 2016). However, covert attention may only have required spatial attention, not FBA, so that the lack of interference may be because of the fact that spatial attention does not interfere with VWM. The current experiment varied feature versus spatial attention and overt versus covert effects upon VWM performance, as measured with a change detection paradigm. Results across three experiments show that memory interference arises when objects features are attended, regardless of whether attention was directed overtly or covertly. In a fourth experiment we show that attending spatial information interferes with spatial working memory, whereas attending feature information does not. These findings demonstrate a dissociation between spatial attention and VWM, which leaves unified concepts of FBA and VWM intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a dispositional tendency to find uncertain situations aversive. There is limited understanding as to how IU may bias attention to uncertainty in the absence of direct threat. Here we examined the extent to which uncertain distractors and individual differences in IU impacted eye-movements during an attentional capture task. Participants were asked to move their eyes towards a target, whilst ignoring an array of distractors. An additional distractor could appear before or after the target in a near or far location from the target. We observed high IU individuals to display fewer first saccades to the target in all conditions. The results were specific to IU, over trait anxiety. Overall, these results suggest that IU modulates attention to uncertainty in the absence of direct threat. Such findings inform the conceptualisation of IU and its relation to psychopathology. • Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a tendency to find uncertainty anxiety-provoking. • We examined how IU impacts attentional capture in the absence of threat. • High IU was associated greater attentional capture to uncertain distractors. • These findings will further the conceptualisation of IU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Return-sweeps are an essential eye-movement that takes the readers' eyes from the end of one line of text to the start of the next. While return-sweeps are common during normal reading, the eye-movement literature is dominated by single-line reading studies where no return-sweeps are needed. The present experiment was designed to explore what readers are targeting with their return-sweeps. Participants read two short stories by Frank L. Baum while their eye-movements were being recorded. In one story, every line-initial word was highlighted by formatting it in bold, while the other story was presented normally (i.e., without any bolding). The bolding manipulation significantly reduced oculomotor error associated with return-sweeps, as these saccades landed closer to the left margin and were less likely to require corrective saccades compared to the control condition. However, despite this reduction in oculomotor error, the bolding had no influence on local fixation durations or global reading-time measures. Moreover, return-sweep landing sites were not impacted by line-initial word length nor did the effect of bolding interact with the length of the line-initial word, suggesting that readers were not targeting the centre of line-initial words. We discuss the implication of these findings for return-sweep targeting and eye-movement control during reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic horizontally scrolling text format produces a directional conflict in the allocation of attention for reading, with a necessity to track each word leftward (in the direction of movement) concurrently with normal rightward shifts made to progress through the text (in left-to-right orthographies such as English). The gaze-contingent window paradigm was used to compare the extent of the perceptual span in reading of scrolling and static sentences. Across two experiments, this investigation confirmed that the allocation of attentional resources to the right of fixation was compressed with scrolling text. There was no evidence for a reversal of the direction of asymmetry or a confounding shift of landing position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oddball studies have shown that sounds unexpectedly deviating from an otherwise repeated sequence capture attention away from the task at hand. While such distraction is typically regarded as potentially important in everyday life, previous work has so far not examined how deviant sounds affect performance on more complex daily tasks. In this study, we developed a new method to examine whether deviant sounds can disrupt reading performance by recording participants' eye movements. Participants read single sentences in silence and while listening to task-irrelevant sounds. In the latter condition, a 50-ms sound was played contingent on the fixation of five target words in the sentence. On most occasions, the same tone was presented (standard sound), whereas on rare and unexpected occasions it was replaced by white noise (deviant sound). The deviant sound resulted in significantly longer fixation durations on the target words relative to the standard sound. A time-course analysis showed that the deviant sound began to affect fixation durations around 180 ms after fixation onset. Furthermore, deviance distraction was not modulated by the lexical frequency of target words. In summary, fixation durations on the target words were longer immediately after the presentation of the deviant sound, but there was no evidence that it interfered with the lexical processing of these words. The present results are in line with the recent proposition that deviant sounds yield a temporary motor suppression and suggest that deviant sounds likely inhibit the programming of the next saccade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The present study examined the relative contribution of bottom-up word identification and top-down sentence-level constraints in facilitating the reading of text printed without between-word spacing. We compared reading of grammatically correct sentences and shuffled versions of the same words presented both with normal spacing and without spaces. We found that reading was hampered by removing sentence structure as well as by removing spaces. A significantly greater impact of sentence structure when reading unspaced text was found in probe word identification accuracies and total viewing times per word, whereas the impact of sentence structure on the probability of making a regressive eye movement was greater when reading normally spaced text. Crucially, we also found that the length of the currently fixated word determined the amplitude of forward saccades leaving that word during the reading of unspaced text. We conclude that the relative ease with which skilled readers can read unspaced text is due to a combination of an increased use of bottom-up word identification in guiding the timing and targeting of eye movements, plus an increased interactivity between word identification and sentence-level processing. Highlights • We examine how sentence-level structures facilitate reading of unspaced text. • Top-down feedback helps reading of unspaced text by facilitating word identification. • Readers can identify words in the absence of word boundary information. • Readers use word identification to guide eye movements in unspaced text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of research has shown that learning about relationships between neutral stimuli and events of significance – rewards or punishments – influences the extent to which people attend to those stimuli in the future. However, different accounts of this influence differ in terms of the critical variable that is proposed to determine learned changes in attention. We describe two experiments using eye-tracking with a rewarded visual search procedure to investigate whether attentional capture is influenced by the predictiveness of stimuli (i.e., the extent to which they provide information about upcoming events) or by their absolute associative value (i.e., the expected incentive value of the outcome that a stimulus predicts). Results demonstrated a clear influence of associative value on the likelihood that stimuli will capture eye-movements, but the evidence for a distinct influence of predictiveness was less compelling. The results of these experiments can be reconciled within a simple account under which attentional prioritization is a monotonic function of the expected, subjective value of the reward that is signalled by a stimulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous behavioural studies have accrued evidence that response time plays a critical role in determining whether selection is influenced by stimulus saliency or target template. In the present work, we investigated to what extent the variations in timing and consequent oculomotor controls are influenced by spontaneous variations in pre‐stimulus alpha oscillations. We recorded simultaneously brain activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and eye movements while participants performed a visual search task. Our results show that slower saccadic reaction times were predicted by an overall stronger alpha power in the 500 ms time window preceding the stimulus onset, while weaker alpha power was a signature of faster responses. When looking separately at performance for fast and slow responses, we found evidence for two specific sources of alpha activity predicting correct versus incorrect responses. When saccades were quickly elicited, errors were predicted by stronger alpha activity in posterior areas, comprising the angular gyrus in the temporal‐parietal junction (TPJ) and possibly the lateral intraparietal area (LIP). Instead, when participants were slower in responding, an increase of alpha power in frontal eye fields (FEF), supplementary eye fields (SEF) and dorsolateral pre‐frontal cortex (DLPFC) predicted erroneous saccades. In other words, oculomotor accuracy in fast responses was predicted by alpha power differences in more posterior areas, while the accuracy in slow responses was predicted by alpha power differences in frontal areas, in line with the idea that these areas may be differentially related to stimulus‐driven and goal‐driven control of selection. Response time is critical in determining selection control strategies. We therefore investigated how variations in timing and consequent oculomotor control are influenced by spontaneous variations in pre‐stimulus alpha oscillations. Our results show that accuracy in fast and slow responses is predicted by alpha power differences in frontal and posterior brain areas, in line with the idea that these regions may be differentially related to stimulus‐driven and goal‐driven control of selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The accurate extraction of signals out of noisy environments is a major challenge of the perceptual system. Forming temporal expectations and continuously matching them with perceptual input can facilitate this process. In humans, temporal expectations are typically assessed using behavioral measures, which provide only retrospective but no real-time estimates during target anticipation, or by using electrophysiological measures, which require extensive preprocessing and are difficult to interpret. Here we show a new correlate of temporal expectations based on oculomotor behavior. Observers performed an orientation-discrimination task on a central grating target, while their gaze position and EEG were monitored. In each trial, a cue preceded the target by a varying interval ("foreperiod"). In separate blocks, the cue was either predictive or non-predictive regarding the timing of the target. Results showed that saccades and blinks were inhibited more prior to an anticipated regular target than a less-anticipated irregular one. This consistent oculomotor inhibition effect enabled a trial-by-trial classification according to interval-regularity. Additionally, in the regular condition the slope of saccade-rate and drift were shallower for longer than shorter foreperiods, indicating their adjustment according to temporal expectations. Comparing the sensitivity of this oculomotor marker with those of other common predictability markers (e.g. alpha-suppression) showed that it is a sensitive marker for cue-related anticipation. In contrast, temporal changes in conditional probabilities (hazard-rate) modulated alpha-suppression more than cue-related anticipation. We conclude that pre-target oculomotor inhibition is a correlate of temporal predictions induced by cue-target associations, whereas alpha-suppression is more sensitive to conditional probabilities across time. Highlights • Saccades and blinks are inhibited prior to predictable targets. • Pre-target oculomotor inhibition can be used as an index of temporal expectations. • This index is sensitive and direct, and is measured while predictions are made, unlike retrospective behavioral measures. • EEG Alpha amplitude is correlated with the hazard rate and reflects conditional probabilities. • There is no evidence that the oculomotor index reflects conditional probabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Similarity-based interference has played an important role in motivating cue-based models of memory retrieval during language comprehension. One example of interference comes from illusions of grammaticality , where ungrammatical sentences are perceived as grammatical (e.g. ‘the key to the cabinets were rusty’). While such effects indicate interference influences perception of sentence grammaticality, less is known about how interference influences the semantic interpretation assigned to a sentence. We report two reading experiments that manipulated sentence plausibility, rather than grammaticality, as a diagnostic of interference. In both experiments, although reading times were longer for implausible sentences, this plausibility effect was reliably attenuated when a distractor item partially matched the cues at retrieval. We interpret these results as being compatible with the predictions of cue-based parsing. The illusions of plausibility that we report indicate that similarity-based retrieval interference has a potent influence on the semantic interpretation that is assigned to a sentence during processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeated reading (RR) procedures are consistent with the procedures recommended by Haring and Eaton's (1978) Instructional Hierarchy (IH) for promoting students' fluent responding to newly learned stimuli. It is therefore not surprising that an extensive body of literature exists, which supports RR as an effective practice for promoting students' reading fluency of practiced passages. Less clear, however, is the extent to which RR helps students read the words practiced in an intervention passage when those same words are presented in a new passage. The current study employed randomized control design procedures to examine the maintenance and generalization effects of three interventions that were designed based upon Haring and Eaton's (1978) IH. Across four days, students either practiced reading (a) the same passage seven times (RR+RR), (b) one passage four times and three passages each once (RR+Guided Wide Reading [GWR]), or (c) seven passages each once (GWR+GWR). Students participated in the study across 2 weeks, with intervention being provided on a different passage set each week. All passages practiced within a week, regardless of condition, contained four target low frequency and four high frequency words. Across the 130 students for whom data were analyzed, results indicated that increased opportunities to practice words led to greater maintenance effects when passages were read seven days later but revealed minimal differences across conditions in students' reading of target words presented within a generalization passage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Bilateral eye-movements (EMs) and visual mental imagery both require working memory resources. When performed together, they compete for these resources, which can cause various forms of mental imagery to become impaired (e.g., less vivid). This study aimed to examine whether EMs impair sexual fantasies (a form of mental imagery) in the same manner.Methods: Eighty undergraduates (40 males, 40 females) took part in four counterbalanced conditions: (1) EMs and an experience-based sexual fantasy; (2) EMs and an imagination-based sexual fantasy; (3) experience-based sexual fantasy only; and (4) imagination-based sexual fantasy only. In each condition, the vividness, emotionality, and arousability of the sexual fantasy were rated pre- and post-task. All three variables were predicted to decrease in the EM conditions.Results: Sexual fantasies were reported as less vivid, positive, and arousing after performing concurrent EMs relative to fantasising only, for both memory- and imagination-based sexual fantasies. There were no gender differences. Demand did not appear to account for the effects.Limitations: Self-report measures were used rather than objective measures. Working memory taxation and capacity were not directly assessed. Also, negatively appraised sexual fantasies were not targeted and a 'no intervention' control was not included.Conclusions: Bilateral EMs were effective at impairing the phenomenological properties of sexual mental imagery, extending the literature on EM effects. Given the potential clinical implications, future research should focus on validating and extending these results, for example, by targeting negatively appraised sexual fantasies (including problematic and offense-related) and incorporating a 'no intervention' condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the ways in which expertise in art history is reflected in meaning-making. We compared a group of students of art history with students with no particular background in art, capturing their eye-movements while viewing Renaissance portraits. To balance central bias, 5 single and 5 double portraits were presented in an initial session limited to 10-s viewing time and in a second session with simultaneous thinking-aloud. Eye-tracking results show that in contrast to laypersons, art historians are more effective in searching for content that is promising for successful meaning-making when looking at representational art. Additionally, experts show deeper engagement with higher levels of meaning of this specific content and in general make more attempts at interpretation than laypersons. Considering the form versus content discussion in aesthetic psychology, this study provides first evidence that the predominate rationale that experts focus on style and laypersons on content is a rather rough perspective and can be refined by having a closer look at the perceptual and cognitive strategies of participants when looking at artworks of a specific style and genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was conducted to examine the development of a movement sequence representation and the role of eye-movements during observational and physical practice. The task was to reproduce a 1300 ms spatial-temporal pattern of a sequence of elbow flexions and extensions. An inter-manual transfer design with a retention and two effector transfer tests (contralateral limb) was used. The mirror transfer test required the same pattern of homologous muscle activation and a sequence of joint angles as experienced during the acquisition phase, and the non-mirror transfer test required the same visual-spatial pattern as performed or observed during acquisition. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups differing in eye-movements (free to use their eyes vs. instruction to fixate) and the practice type (observational practice vs. physical practice). The results indicated that permitting to use eye-movements facilitates sequence learning. This advantage was found on both practice types. The results of the transfer tests indicated that participants of the physical practice group who were permitted to use their eyes demonstrated superior transfer performance in the mirror transfer test, while participants in the observational practice group demonstrated better performance on the non-mirror transfer test. These findings indicated that eye-movements enhanced the development of a visual-spatial representation during observational practice as well as a motor representation during physical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex words in Hebrew are composed of two non-concatenated morphemes: a consonantal root embedded in a nominal or verbal word-pattern morpho-phonological unit made up of vowels or vowels and consonants. Research on written-word recognition has revealed a robust effect of the roots and the verbal-patterns, but not of the nominal-patterns, on word recognition. These findings suggest that the Hebrew lexicon is organized and accessed via roots. We explored the hypothesis that the absence of a nominal-pattern effect reflects methodological limitations of the experimental paradigms used in previous studies. Specifically, the potential facilitative effect induced by a shared nominal-pattern was counteracted by an interference effect induced by the competition between the roots of two words derived from different roots but with the same nominal-pattern. In the current study, a fast-priming paradigm for sentence reading and a "delayed-letters" procedure were used to isolate the initial effect of nominal-patterns on lexical access. The results, based on eye-fixation latency, demonstrated a facilitatory effect induced by nominal-pattern primes relative to orthographic control primes when presented for 33 or 42 ms. The results are discussed in relation to the role of the word-pattern as an organizing principle of the Hebrew lexicon, together with the roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]