arxiv:2410.20779

Decoding Reading Goals from Eye Movements

Published on Oct 28

· Submitted by

scaperex on Oct 31

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Authors:

Omer Shubi ,

Abstract

Readers can have different goals with respect to the text they are reading. Can these goals be decoded from the pattern of their eye movements over the text? In this work, we examine for the first time whether it is possible to decode two types of reading goals that are common in daily life: information seeking and ordinary reading. Using large scale eye-tracking data, we apply to this task a wide range of state-of-the-art models for eye movements and text that cover different architectural and data representation strategies, and further introduce a new model ensemble. We systematically evaluate these models at three levels of generalization: new textual item, new participant, and the combination of both. We find that eye movements contain highly valuable signals for this task. We further perform an error analysis which builds on prior empirical findings on differences between ordinary reading and information seeking and leverages rich textual annotations. This analysis reveals key properties of textual items and participant eye movements that contribute to the difficulty of the task.

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scaperex

Paper author Paper submitter 6 days ago

Can we decode a reader's goals from their eye movements?

In this work we explore whether common reading intentions—information-seeking versus ordinary reading—can be distinguished using eye-tracking data.

We apply a range of multimodal (eye movements and text) models, including a model ensemble, and evaluate their performance across three generalization levels: new text, new participant, and the combination of both. We find that eye movements contain highly valuable signals for the task!

We further perform an error analysis which builds on prior empirical findings on differences between ordinary reading and information seeking and leverages rich textual annotations. This analysis reveals key properties of textual items and participant eye movements that contribute to the difficulty of the task.