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Music reading is the key to literacy for musicians in the Western music tradition. This high-level activity requires an efficient extraction of the visual information from the score to the current needs of the execution. Differences in eye movements between expert and non-expert musicians during music reading have been shown. The present study goes further, using a machine learning approach to classify musicians according to their level of expertise in analyzing their eye movements and performance during sight-reading. We used a support vector machine (SVM) technique to (a) investigate whether the underlying expertise in musical reading could be reliably inferred from eye movements, performance, and subjective measures collected across five levels of expertise and (b) determine the best predictors for classifying expertise from 24 visual measures (e.g., the number of progressive fixations, the number of regressive fixations, pupil size, first-pass fixations, and second-pass fixations), 10 performance measures (e.g., eye–hand span, velocity, latency, play duration, tempo, and false notes), and 4 subjective measures (perceived complexity and cognitive skills). Eye movements from 68 pianists at five different levels of music expertise (according to their level in the conservatory of music—from first cycle to professional) were co-registered with their piano performance via a Musical Instrument Digital Interface, while they sight-read classical and contemporary music scores. Results revealed relevant classifications based on the SVM analysis. The model optimally classified the lower levels of expertise (1 and 2) compared to the higher levels (3, 4, and 5) and the medium level (3) compared to higher levels (4 and 5). Furthermore, across a total of 38 measures, the model identified the four best predictors of the level of expertise: the sum of fixations by note, the number of blinks, the number of fixations, and the average fixation duration. Thus, efficiently classifying musical reading expertise from musicians' eye movements and performance using SVM is possible. The results have important theoretical and practical implications for music cognition and pedagogy, enhancing the specialized eye and performance behaviors required for an expert music reading.

Aviation remains one of the safest modes of transportation. However, an inappropriate response to an unexpected event can lead to flight incidents and accidents. Among several contributory factors, startle and surprise, which can lead to or exacerbate the pilot's state of stress, are often cited. Unlike stress, which has been the subject of much study in the context of driving and piloting, studies on startle and surprise are less numerous and these concepts are sometimes used interchangeably. Thus, the definitions of stress, startle, and surprise are reviewed, and related differences are put in evidence. Furthermore, it is proposed to distinguish these notions in the evaluation and to add physiological measures to subjective measures in their study. Indeed, Landman's theoretical model makes it possible to show the links between these concepts and studies using physiological parameters show that they would make it possible to disentangle the links between stress, startle and surprise in the context of aviation. Finally, we draw some perspectives to set up further studies focusing specifically on these concepts and their measurement.

Reading is increasingly taking place on digital media, which are vectors of attentional disruption. This manuscript aims to characterize attentional disruption during reading on a computer screen in an ecological environment. To this end, we collected information relating to reader interruptions (number, type, duration, position, mental effort, and valence) and self-caught mind wandering (occurrence, position) throughout the reading session for high and low media multitaskers in their own specific ecological environment, at home. Comprehension of the narrative text was assessed both with surface and inferential questions. In total, 74 participants (M = 22.16, SD = 2.35) took part in the experiment. They reported attentional disruptions on average every 4 mins during reading. Moreover, there were more attentional disruptions during the first half of the text. Most interruptions were short and little mental effort was required to process them. We made a distinction between media-related and media-unrelated related interruptions. Multiple linear regression analyses showed that media-unrelated interruptions were actually related to better performance for both inferential and surface level questions. Furthermore, media-related interruptions were more frequent for high than low media multitaskers. Pleasure experienced when reading the text was also a significant predictor of comprehension. The results are discussed with regard to Long-Term Working Memory and strategies that the readers could have implemented to recover the thread of their reading.

The current meta-analysis was conducted on 12 studies comparing the eye movements of expert versus non-expert musicians and attempted to determine which eye movement measures are expertise dependent during music reading. The total dataset of 61 comparisons was divided into four subsets, each concerning one eye-movement variable (i.e., fixation duration, number of fixations, saccade amplitude, and gaze duration). We used a variance estimation method to aggregate the effect sizes. The results support the robust finding of reduced fixation duration in expert musicians (Subset 1, g = -0.72). Due to low statistical power because of limited effect sizes, the results on the number of fixations, saccade amplitude, and gaze duration were not reliable. We conducted meta-regression analyses to determine potential moderators of the effect of expertise on eye movements (i.e., definition of experimental groups, type of musical task performed, type of musical material used or tempo control). Moderator analyses did not yield any reliable results. The need for consistency in the experimental methodology is discussed. *The first two authors equally contributed to the first authorship

This paper provides new research perspectives in the field of multimodal comprehension (auditory crossing visual information) by using immersion and incorporating eye tracking in a virtual reality environment. The objective is to investigate the influence of a change in narrative perspective (point of view) during the activation of a mental model underlying comprehension between visual and auditory modalities. Twenty-eight participants, equipped with a headset SMI HMD HTC eye-tracking 250 Hz watched 16 visual scenes in virtual reality accompanied by their corresponding auditory narration. The change in perspective may occur either in the visual scenes or in listening. Mean fixations durations on typical objects of the visual scenes (Area of Interest) that were related to the perspective shift were analyzed as well as the free recall of narratives. We split each scene into three periods according to different parts of the narration (Before, Target, After), the target was where a shift in perspective could occur. Results shown that when a visual change of perspective occurred, mean fixation duration was shorter (compared to no change) for both Target and After. However, when auditory change of perspective occurred, no difference was found on Target, although during After, mean fixation duration was longer (compared to no change). In the context of 3D video visualization, it seems that auditory processing prevails over visual processing of verbal information: The visual change of perspective induces less visual processing of the Area of Interest (AOIs) included in the visual scene, but the auditory change in perspective leads to increased visual processing of the visual scene. Moreover, the analysis showed higher recall of information (verbatim and paraphrase) when an auditory change in perspective was coupled with no visual change of perspective. Thus, our results indicate a more effective integration of information when there is an inconsistency between the narration heard and viewed. A change in perspective, instead of creating comprehension and integration difficulties, seems to effectively raise the attention and induce a shorter visual inspection. These results are discussed in the context of cross-modal comprehension.

We introduce a database (IDEST) of 250 short stories rated for valence, arousal, and comprehensibility in two languages. The texts, with a narrative structure telling a story in the first person and controlled for length, were originally written in six different languages (Finnish, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish), and rated for arousal, valence, and comprehensibility in the original language. The stories were translated into English, and the same ratings for the English translations were collected via an internet survey tool (N = 573). In addition to the rating data, we also report readability indexes for the original and English texts. The texts have been categorized into different story types based on their emotional arc. The texts score high on comprehensibility and represent a wide range of emotional valence and arousal levels. The comparative analysis of the ratings of the original texts and English translations showed that valence ratings were very similar across languages, whereas correlations between the two pairs of language versions for arousal and comprehensibility were modest. Comprehensibility ratings correlated with only some of the readability indexes. The database is published in osf.io/9tga3, and it is freely available for academic research.

This article presents a set of data from cognitive psychology studies on reading behavior induced by the presentation of texts on digital screens. Reading on a screen disrupts visual perception as well as attention, memory and ultimately understanding of digital texts. Taking these cognitive limits into account is therefore necessary in the development of new tools or teaching on digital media, especially for very young students.

In a sight-reading task, the position of the eyes on the score is generally further ahead than the note being produced by the instrument. This anticipation allows musicians to identify the upcoming notes and possible difficulties and to plan their gestures accordingly. The eye-hand span (EHS) corresponds to this offset between the eye and the hand and measures the distance or latency between an eye fixation on the score and the production of the note on the instrument. While EHS is mostly quite short, the variation in its size can depend on multiple factors. EHS increases in line with the musician's expertise level, diminishes as a function of the complexity of the score and can vary depending on the context in which it is played. By summarizing the main factors that affect EHS and the methodologies used in this field of study, the present review of the literature highlights the fact that a) to ensure effective sight reading, the EHS must be adaptable and optimized in size (neither too long not too short), with the best sight readers exhibiting a high level of perceptual flexibility in adapting their span to the complexity of the score; b) it is important to interpret EHS in the light of the specificities of the score, given that it varies so much both within and between scores; and c) the flexibility of EHS can be a good indicator of the perceptual and cognitive capacities of musicians, showing that a musician's gaze can be attracted early by a complexity in a still distant part of the score. These various points are discussed in the light of the literature on music-reading expertise. Promising avenues of research using the eye tracking method are proposed in order to further our knowledge of the construction of an expertise that requires multisensory integration.

Nosso estudo, fruto de uma parceria internacional, buscou aferir a importância dada por 23 leitores ao nome do veículo de publicação de quatro diferentes textos sobre temas de saúde, utilizando uma metodologia inovadora no campo de estudo acadêmico da divulgação científica – um rastreador ocular. Com ele, é possível mapear a cada instante o olhar do leitor e os pontos de fixação do olho sobre o texto, indicando a atenção do leitor. Apesar de o local de publicação ser considerado um critério importante de credibilidade da informação, nossos resultados, a partir da análise de 35.394 medições de fixações aferidas pelo rastreador ocular, indicam a pouca importância dada ao nome do veículo de publicação, ainda que o texto apresente características de notícias falsas.

In the present study, we independently manipulated valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and emotional intensity (low, medium, or high), asking what impact they have on text comprehension (via surface, paraphrase, and inference questions) and memorization (via Remember/Know test) in adults. Results show that emotional contents, including valence and intensity affects comprehension. Emotional valence had a significant effect on text comprehension, with higher scores for positive and neutral texts than for negative ones. Participants scored higher on the surface questions for positive texts and on the inference questions for negative texts, with equivalent scores for paraphrase questions. Regarding emotional intensity, medium intensity generally fostered better comprehension of both positive and negative texts. High emotional intensity is beneficial for positively valenced texts, but hinders the understanding of negatively valenced ones. Regarding memorization, participants recalled more emotional words than neutral ones, and more words for positive texts than for either negative or neutral ones. In conclusion, our results show that emotions play an important role and improve the processing of information.

The study investigated the cross-modal integration hypothesis for expert musicians using eye tracking. Twenty randomized excerpts of classical music were presented in two modes (auditory and visual), at the same time (simultaneously) or successively (sequentially). Musicians (N = 53, 26 experts and 27 non-experts) were asked to detect a note modified between the auditory and visual versions, either in the same major/minor key or violating the key. Experts carried out the task faster and with greater accuracy than non-experts. Sequential presentation was more difficult than simultaneous (longer fixations and higher error rates) and the modified notes were more easily detected when violating the key (fewer errors), but with longer fixations (speed/accuracy trade-off strategy). Experts detected the modified note faster, especially in the simultaneous condition in which cross-modal integration may be applied. These results support the hypothesis that the main difference between experts and non-experts derives from the difference in knowledge structures in memory built over time with practice. They also suggest that these high-level knowledge structures in memory contain harmony and tonal rules, arguing in favour of cross-modal integration capacities for experts, which are related to and can be explained by the long-term working memory (LTWM) model of expert memory (e.g. Drai-Zerbib & Baccino, 2014; Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995).

The food sensory science community has recently shown an increasing interest towards the measurement of emotions induced by product consumption. In this paper, we propose a standard method to objectively and quantitatively explore emotions in tasting situations through measurement and analysis of pupil diameter. Pupillometry is a well-knownmethod for investigating cognitive load and emotional effects. However, since a standard method to analyze pupil response data is lacking, we provide here a guided methodology, from data acquisition to dataprocessing. An example of an application is also provided. The advantages and major drawbacks of this method are discussed.

An experiment was conducted in a driving simulator to test how eye-movements patterns evolve over time according to the decision-making processes involved in a driving task. Participants had to drive up to crossroads and decide to stop or not. The decision-making task was considered as the succession of two phases associated with cognitive processes: Differentiation (leading to a prior decision) and Consolidation (leading to a final decision). Road signs (Stop, Priority and GiveWay) varied across situations, and the stopping behavior (Go and NoGo) was recorded. Saccade amplitudes and fixation durations were analyzed. Specific patterns were found for each condition in accordance with the associated processes: high visual exploration (larger saccade amplitudes and shorter fixation durations) for the Differentiation phase, and lower visual exploration (smaller saccades and longer fixations) for the Consolidation phase. These results support that eye-movements can provide good indexes of underlying processes occurring during a decision-making task in an everyday context.

The mass digitization of books is changing the way information is created, disseminated and displayed. Electronic book readers (e-readers) generally refer to two main display technologies: the electronic ink (E-ink) and the liquid crystal display (LCD). Both technologies have advantages and disadvantages, but the question whether one or the other triggers less visual fatigue is still open. The aim of the present research was to study the effects of the display technology on visual fatigue. To this end, participants performed a longitudinal study in which two last generation e-readers (LCD, E-ink) and paper book were tested in three different prolonged reading sessions separated by--on average--ten days. Results from both objective (Blinks per second) and subjective (Visual Fatigue Scale) measures suggested that reading on the LCD (Kindle Fire HD) triggers higher visual fatigue with respect to both the E-ink (Kindle Paperwhite) and the paper book. The absence of differences between E-ink and paper suggests that, concerning visual fatigue, the E-ink is indeed very similar to the paper.

It is often said that experienced musicians are capable of hearing what they read (and vice versa). This suggests that they are able to process and to integrate multimodal information. The study investigates this issue with an eye-tracking technique. Two groups of musicians chosen on the basis of their level of expertise (experts, non-experts) had to read excerpts of poorly-known classical piano music and play them on a keyboard. The experiment was run in two consecutive phases during which each excerpt was (1) read without playing and (2) sight-read (read and played). In half the conditions, the participants heard the music before the reading phases. The excerpts contained suggested fingering of variable difficulty (difficult, easy, or no fingering). Analyses of first-pass fixation duration, second-pass fixation duration, probability of refixations, and playing mistakes validated the hypothesized modal independence of information among expert musicians as compared to non-experts. The results are discussed in terms of amodal memory for expert musicians, and they extend clearly our previous findings (Drai-Zerbib & Baccino, 2005). The paper will demonstrate that more experienced performers are better able to transfer learning from one modality to another, which can be in support of theoretical work by Ericsson and Kintsch (1995): more experienced performers better integrate knowledge across modalities. This view relies on the general flexibility shown in the experts' behaviour. The paper will show the correspondence between our results and issues recently obtained in ERPs researches and brain imaging studies (fMRI, MEG), where cerebral structures generally associated with different perceptual modalities were shown to be interconnected or overlap.

Overt visual attention is the act of directing the eyes toward a given area. These eye movements are characterised by saccades and fixations. A debate currently surrounds the role of visual fixations. Do they all have the same role in the free viewing of natural scenes? Recent studies suggest that at least two types of visual fixations exist: focal and ambient. The former is believed to be used to inspect local areas accurately, whereas the latter is used to obtain the context of the scene. We investigated the use of an automated system to cluster visual fixations in two groups using four types of natural scene images. We found new evidence to support a focal-ambient dichotomy. Our data indicate that the determining factor is the saccade amplitude. The dependence on the low-level visual features and the time course of these two kinds of visual fixations were examined. Our results demonstrate that there is an interplay between both fixation populations and that focal fixations are more dependent on low-level visual features than are ambient fixations.