Recent studies of eye movements in reading and other information processing tasks, such as music reading, typing, visual search, and scene perception, are reviewed. The major emphasis of the review is on reading as a specific example of cognitive processing. Basic topics discussed with respect to reading are (a) the characteristics of eye movements, (b) the perceptual span, (c) integration of information across saccades, (d) eye movement control, and (e) individual differences (including dyslexia). Similar topics are discussed with respect to the other tasks examined. The basic theme of the review is that eye movement data reflect moment-to-moment cognitive processes in the various tasks examined. Theoretical and practical considerations concerning the use of eye movement data are also discussed. Many studies using eye movements to investigate cognitive processes have appeared over the past 20 years. In an earlier review, I (Rayner, 1978b) argued that since the mid-1970s we have been in a third era of eye movement research and that the success of research in the current era would depend on the ingenuity of researchers in designing interesting and informative

This paper re-assesses the role of real-time video as a technology to support interpersonal communications at distance. We review three distinct hypotheses about the role of video in the co-ordination of conversational content and process. For each hypothesis, we identify design implications and outstanding research questions derived from current findings. We first evaluate the non-verbal communication hypothesis, namely the prevailing assumption that the role of video is to supplement speech, and embodied in applications such as videoconferencing and videophone. We conclude that previous work has overestimated the importance of video at the expense of audio. This finding has strong implications for the implementation of such systems, and we make recommendations about both synchronisation and bandwidth allocation. Furthermore our own recent studies of workplace interactions point to other communicative functions of video. Current systems have neglected another potentially vital role of...

In two experiments, eye movements were monitored as participants followed spoken instructions to click on and move pictures with a computer mouse. In Experiment 1, a referent picture (e.g., the picture of a bench) was presented along with three pictures, two of which had names that shared the same initial phonemes as the name of the referent (e.g., bed and bell). Participants were more likely to fixate the picture with the higher frequency name (bed) than the picture with the lower frequency name (bell). In Experiment 2, referent pictures were presented with three unrelated distractors. Fixation latencies to referents with high-frequency names were shorter than those to referents with low-frequency names. The proportion of fixations to the referents and distractors were analyzed in 33-ms time slices to provide fine-grained information about the time course of frequency effects. These analyses established that frequency affects the earliest moments of lexical access and rule out a late-acting, decision-bias locus for frequency. Simulations using models in which frequency operates on resting-activation levels, on connection strengths, and as a postactivation decision bias provided further constraints on the locus of frequency effects. © 2001 Academic Press Key Words: lexical frequency; spoken-word recognition; eye tracking. As the sound pattern of a spoken word unfolds over time, recognition takes place against a backdrop of partially activated alternatives that compete for recognition. The most activated alternatives are those that most closely match the input. For instance, as a listener hears the word cap, lexical representations of words with similar sounds, such as cat, will be briefly activated. This work was supported by NSF Grant SBR-9729095 to Michael K. Tanenhaus and Richard N. Aslin, and an NSF GRF to James S. Magnuson. We thank Ellen Hogan for her help

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cation as an integrated set of speech, gaze, and gestural behaviours. As we shall see, studies of mediated communication allow us to identify the contribution of different nonverbal behaviours, such as gaze and gesture to communication. They also help to clarify the overall influence of visual information in communication, and the effects of communication interactive processes such as feedback on communication. Prior to examining what research has to say about these issues, we describe: (a) mediated communication theories; (b) the technologies used to support communication in the various situations; (c) the methods used to study mediated communication. Theories of mediated communication There are many different theories of mediated communication. Rather than describing each in detail, we restrict ourselves here to an exposition of the general form that these theories take, and the general set of claims that they make. The fundamental goal of mediated communication theor

We examine the influence of inferring interlocutors' referential intentions from their body movements at the early stage of lexical acquisition. By testing human subjects and comparing their performances in different learning conditions, we find that those embodied intentions facilitate both word discovery and word-meaning association.

Motivated by and grounded in observations of eye-gaze patterns in human-human dialogue, this study explores using eye-gaze patterns in managing human-computer dialogue. We developed an interactive system, iTourist, for city trip planning, which encapsulated knowledge of eye-gaze patterns gained from studies of human-human collaboration systems. User study results show that it was possible to sense users ’ interest based on eye-gaze patterns and manage computer information output accordingly. Study participants could successfully plan their trip with iTourist and positively rated their experience of using it. We demonstrate that eyegaze could play an important role in managing future multimodal human-computer dialogues.

This commentary reviews the existing research literature concerning support for talking about objects in mediated communication, drawing three conclusions: (a) speech alone is often sufficient for effective conversations; (b) visual information about work objects is generally more valuable than visual information about work participants; (c) disjoint visual perspectives can undermine communication processes. I then comment on the four papers in the light of these observations, arguing that they broadly support these observations. I discuss the paradoxical failure of current technologies to support talk about objects, arguing that these need to be better integrated with existing communication applications. I conclude by outlining a research agenda for supporting talk about things, identifying outstanding theoretical, empirical and design issues.

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The time course of spoken word recognition depends largely on the frequencies of a word and its competitors, or neighbors (similar-sounding words). However, variability in natural lexicons makes systematic analysis of frequency and neighbor similarity difficult. Artificial lexicons were used to achieve precise control over word frequency and phonological similarity. Eye tracking provided time course measures of lexical activation and competition (during spoken instructions to perform visually guided tasks) both during and after word learning, as a function of word frequency, neighbor type, and neighbor frequency. Apparent shifts from holistic to incremental competitor effects were observed in adults and neural network simulations, suggesting such shifts reflect general properties of learning rather than changes in the nature of lexical representations. Current models of spoken word recognition share a set of core assumptions that correspond to what Marslen-Wilson (1993) called the macrostructure of spoken word recognition: As speech is heard, multiple lexical candidates are activated and compete for recognition with strengths proportional to their similarity with the input and their prior probabilities (frequencies of occurrence).