Eye movements during mindless reading
Eye movements during mindless reading
Mindless reading occurs when the eyes continue moving across the page even though the mind is thinking about something unrelated to the text. Despite how commonly it occurs, very little is known about mindless reading. The present experiment examined eye movements during mindless reading. Comparisons of fixation-duration measures collected during intervals of normal reading and intervals of mindless reading indicate that fixations during the latter were longer and less affected by lexical and linguistic variables than fixations during the former. Also, eye movements immediately preceding self-caught mind wandering were especially erratic. These results suggest that the cognitive processes that guide eye movements during normal reading are not engaged during mindless reading. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of eye movement control in reading, for the distinction between experiential awareness and meta-awareness, and for reading comprehension.
attention, awareness, eye movements, meta-awareness, reading
1300-1310
Reichle, Erik D.
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Reineberg, Andrew E.
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Schooler, Jonathan W.
c18a569a-c002-4840-b02d-9fc17e45af16
September 2010
Reichle, Erik D.
44dc4e6a-e5e2-47c5-9a09-2ef759db0583
Reineberg, Andrew E.
c722ad94-9a3f-49ef-a74d-e4333cd89f2b
Schooler, Jonathan W.
c18a569a-c002-4840-b02d-9fc17e45af16
Abstract
Mindless reading occurs when the eyes continue moving across the page even though the mind is thinking about something unrelated to the text. Despite how commonly it occurs, very little is known about mindless reading. The present experiment examined eye movements during mindless reading. Comparisons of fixation-duration measures collected during intervals of normal reading and intervals of mindless reading indicate that fixations during the latter were longer and less affected by lexical and linguistic variables than fixations during the former. Also, eye movements immediately preceding self-caught mind wandering were especially erratic. These results suggest that the cognitive processes that guide eye movements during normal reading are not engaged during mindless reading. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of eye movement control in reading, for the distinction between experiential awareness and meta-awareness, and for reading comprehension.
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348426_Reichle_Eye Movements During Mindless Reading.pdf
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e-pub ahead of print date: 2 August 2010
Published date: September 2010
Keywords:
attention, awareness, eye movements, meta-awareness, reading
Organisations:
Psychology
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 348426
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/348426
ISSN: 0956-7976
PURE UUID: e4dfadb7-156f-4f42-94d6-e9cb1783c0b1
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Date deposited: 13 Feb 2013 09:55
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 12:58
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Contributors
Author:
Erik D. Reichle
Author:
Andrew E. Reineberg
Author:
Jonathan W. Schooler
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