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Referential processing during reading: concurrent recordings of eye movements and head motion

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Abstract

The present study utilized a new experimental set-up synchronizing eye movements and head motion for investigating referential change occurring in a reading task. We examined the effects of a change in narrative perspective during reading on eye movements and head motion. Forty-four participants read texts on a digital tablet, and both participants’ eye movements and head movements were recorded using eye tracker and motion capture. The results showed longer eye fixation duration, longer reading time and decreasing head motions when perspective changed. Recent studies have supported the dynamic engagement hypothesis suggesting that there is a fluctuation in cognitive engagement reflected by postural movements. Our findings on head movements seem to validate this hypothesis of a bodily engagement in reading. The results provided by our study showed that the novel methodology of eye and head movement recordings we used was proven to be informative in studying the reader’s embodiment during reading.

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Acknowledgements

We kindly thank Dr. J.K. Kaakinen for proofreading.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Paris 8, 2 Rue de la Liberté, 93526, Saint-Denis, France

    Ugo Ballenghein & Thierry Baccino

  2. CHART/LUTIN Laboratory, Paris, France

    Ugo Ballenghein & Thierry Baccino

Authors
  1. Ugo Ballenghein
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  2. Thierry Baccino
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ugo Ballenghein or Thierry Baccino.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Handling editor: Michael J. Spivey (University of California, Merced); Reviewers: Two anonymous reviewers.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 62 kb)

Appendix

Appendix

Total fixation time

See Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Table 2 Model for total fixation time on the pronoun (ms)
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Table 3 Model for total fixation time on the verb (ms)
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Table 4 Model for total fixation time on the complement (ms)
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Table 5 Model for total fixation time on the set pronoun + verb + complement (ms)
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Mean fixation duration

See Tables 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Table 6 Model for mean fixation duration on the pronoun (ms)
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Table 7 Model for mean fixation duration on the verb (ms)
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Table 8 Model for mean fixation duration on the complement (ms)
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Table 9 Model for mean fixation time on the set pronoun + verb + complement (ms)
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Head-to-screen distance

See Tables 10, 11, 12 and 13.

Table 10 Model for head-to-screen distance on the pronoun (mm)
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Table 11 Model for head-to-screen distance on the verb (mm)
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Table 12 Model for head-to-screen distance on the complement (mm)
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Table 13 Model for head-to-screen distance on the set pronoun + verb + complement (mm)
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Speed of head motion

See Tables 14, 15, 16 and 17.

Table 14 Model for speed of head motion distance on the pronoun (mm/s)
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Table 15 Model for speed of head motion distance on the verb (mm/s)
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Table 16 Model for speed of head motion distance on the complement (mm/s)
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Table 17 Model for speed of head motion distance on the set pronoun + verb + complement (mm/s)
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Recall scores

See Table 18.

Table 18 Model for recall scores (%)
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Interaction perspective shift and comprehension

See Table 19.

Table 19 Perspective shift and comprehension interaction on speed on head motion
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Ballenghein, U., Baccino, T. Referential processing during reading: concurrent recordings of eye movements and head motion. Cogn Process 20, 371–384 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-018-0894-1

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