A Bayesian Approach to Dynamical Modeling of Eye-Movement Control in Reading of Normal, Mirrored, and Scrambled Texts

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In eye-movement control during reading, advanced process-oriented models have been developed to reproduce behavioral data. So far, model complexity and large numbers of model parameters prevented rigorous statistical inference and modeling of interindividual differences. Here we propose a Bayesian approach to both problems for one representative computational model of sentence reading (SWIFT; Engbert et al., Psychological Review, 112, 2005, pp. 777–813). We used experimental data from 36 subjects who read the text in a normal and one of four manipulated text layouts (e.g., mirrored and scrambled letters). The SWIFT model was fitted to subjects and experimental conditions individually to investigate between-subject variability. Based on posterior distributions of model parameters, fixation probabilities and durations are reliably recovered from simulated data and reproduced for withheld empirical data, at both the experimental condition and subject levels. A subsequent statistical analysis of model parameters across reading conditions generates model-driven explanations for observable effects between conditions

Original languageEnglish
JournalPsychological Review
Volume128
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)803-823
Number of pages21
ISSN0033-295X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1287, project B03 (project no. 317633480). R. E. and S. A. S. received additional support by SFB 1294, project B03 (project no. 318763901). We acknowledge support by Norddeutscher Verbund für Hoch- und Höchstleistungsrechnen (HLRN, project no. bbx00001) for providing high-performance computing resources that contributed to the research results reported in this work. We thank Martijn Meeter for valuable comments on the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Psychological Association

    Research areas

  • Bayesian inference, Dynamical models, Individual differences, Oculomotor control, Reading eye movements

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