Eye-Tracking With Text
Gregory D. Keating · 2013
Eye-tracking is an experimental method that consists of monitoring and recording the eye movements that a person makes while performing a task that involves complex visual cognitive processing. Given that vision-and, therefore, oculomotor behavior-is involved in a myriad of human cognitive processes, eye-tracking stands apart from some of the other methods discussed in this volume in terms of the breadth of cognitive processes it can illuminate and in its applicability outside of academic research. In addition to its use in the study of reading (the topic of this chapter) and scene perception during spoken language comprehension (see Dussias, Valdes Kroff, & Gerfen, Chapter 5 , this volume), both of which are studied by psycholinguists, eye-tracking has been used in fi elds as diverse as Communications and Engineering. Among its many applications to industry, eye-movement monitoring has been used to evaluate the effectiveness of online advertisements and has led to the development of systems to monitor driver and pilot fatigue. Nevertheless, the primary use of eye-tracking is to study the comprehension of written text (i.e., reading).