Markers of musical expertise in a sight-reading task: An eye-tracking study.

Classical music pianists of five different conservatory levels, from undergraduate to professional, were tested on a sight-reading task with eye-movement recording. They had to sight read both tonal classical scores that followed the rules specific to Western tonal music, and atonal contemporary scores, which do not follow these rules. This study aimed at determining the extent to which eye movements and musical performance metrics can account for the level of sight-reading expertise.

A narrative review of the interconnection between pilot acute stress, startle, and surprise effects in the aviation context: Contribution of physiological measurements.

Aviation remains one of the safest modes of transportation. However, an inappropriate response to an unexpected event can lead to flight incidents and accidents. Among several contributory factors, startle and surprise, which can lead to or exacerbate the pilot's state of stress, are often cited.

A Meta-analysis on the Effect of Expertise on Eye Movements during Music Reading.

The current meta-analysis was conducted on 12 studies comparing the eye movements of expert versus non-expert musicians and attempted to determine which eye movement measures are expertise dependent during music reading. The total dataset of 61 comparisons was divided into four subsets, each concerning one eye-movement variable (i.e.

Fluctuation in cognitive engagement during listening and reading of erotica and horror stories.

The present study examined whether emotional text content influences cognitive engagement and transportation during listening (Experiment 1) and reading (Experiment 2) of neutral, horror and erotic stories. In Experiment 1, fluctuation in arousal and cognitive engagement were measured by continuous arousal judgments and head movement recordings during story listening. Participants rated experienced transportation and emotional valence after each story.

Corrigendum: What breaks the flow of reading? A study on characteristics of attentional disruption during digital reading.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.

What breaks the flow of reading? A study on characteristics of attentional disruption during digital reading.

Reading is increasingly taking place on digital media, which are vectors of attentional disruption. This manuscript aims to characterize attentional disruption during reading on a computer screen in an ecological environment. To this end, we collected information relating to reader interruptions (number, type, duration, position, mental effort, and valence) and (occurrence, position) throughout the reading session for and media multitaskers in their own specific ecological environment, at home.

IDEST: International Database of Emotional Short Texts.

We introduce a database (IDEST) of 250 short stories rated for valence, arousal, and comprehensibility in two languages. The texts, with a narrative structure telling a story in the first person and controlled for length, were originally written in six different languages (Finnish, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish), and rated for arousal, valence, and comprehensibility in the original language. The stories were translated into English, and the same ratings for the English translations were collected via an internet survey tool (N = 573).

Review on Eye-Hand Span in Sight-Reading of Music.

In a sight-reading task, the position of the eyes on the score is generally further ahead than the note being produced by the instrument. This anticipation allows musicians to identify the upcoming notes and possible difficulties and to plan their gestures accordingly. The eye-hand span (EHS) corresponds to this offset between the eye and the hand and measures the distance or latency between an eye fixation on the score and the production of the note on the instrument.

Cognitive engagement during reading on digital tablet: Evidence from concurrent recordings of postural and eye movements.

The present study utilised a novel combination of eye movement and motion capture recordings to examine cognitive engagement during reading on a hand-held tablet computer. Participants read a multiple-page text with a specific task in mind and after reading recalled the main contents of text from memory. The results showed that head distance from screen was slightly shorter, and readers spent longer time reading task-relevant than irrelevant segments of text and had better memory for task-relevant than irrelevant text information, indicating that there are task-induced momentary changes in engagement during reading.

Effects of Valence and Emotional Intensity on the Comprehension and Memorization of Texts.

In the present study, we independently manipulated valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and emotional intensity (low, medium, or high), asking what impact they have on text comprehension (via surface, paraphrase, and inference questions) and memorization (via Remember/Know test) in adults. Results show that emotional contents, including valence and intensity affects comprehension. Emotional valence had a significant effect on text comprehension, with higher scores for positive and neutral texts than for negative ones.

Cognitive engagement in emotional text reading: concurrent recordings of eye movements and head motion.

The present study examined the effects of emotions on eye movements, head motion, and iPad motion during reading. Thirty-one participants read neutral, emotionally negative texts and emotionally positive texts on a digital tablet and both participants' eye movements and body movements were recorded using respectively eye-tracking glasses and a motion capture system. The results showed that emotionally positive texts were read faster than neutral texts, and that readers' movements decreased when reading emotional texts regardless of valence polarity.

Cross-modal music integration in expert memory: Evidence from eye movements.

The study investigated the cross-modal integration hypothesis for expert musicians using eye tracking. Twenty randomized excerpts of classical music were presented in two modes (auditory and visual), at the same time (simultaneously) or successively (sequentially). Musicians (N = 53, 26 experts and 27 non-experts) were asked to detect a note modified between the auditory and visual versions, either in the same major/minor key or violating the key.

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

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.

Fluctuation in cognitive engagement during reading: Evidence from concurrent recordings of postural and eye movements.

The present study utilized a novel methodological combination of eye tracking and postural movement recordings to study task-induced changes in cognitive engagement during expository text reading. Thirty-three participants read an expository text with a specific task in mind while their eye and postural movements were concurrently recorded, and after reading recalled the text from memory. The results showed that readers spent longer total fixation time and had better memory for task-relevant than irrelevant text information.

Affective processing in natural scene viewing: valence and arousal interactions in eye-fixation-related potentials.

Attention is drawn to emotionally salient stimuli. The present study investigates processing of emotionally salient regions during free viewing of emotional scenes that were categorized according to the two-dimensional model comprising of valence (unpleasant, pleasant) and arousal (high, low). Recent studies have reported interactions between these dimensions, indicative of stimulus-evoked approach or withdrawal tendencies.

A new sentence generator providing material for maximum reading speed measurement.

A new method is proposed to generate text material for assessing maximum reading speed of adult readers. The described procedure allows one to generate a vast number of equivalent short sentences. These sentences can be displayed for different durations in order to determine the reader's maximum speed using a psychophysical threshold algorithm.

Preparation of forefinger's sequence on keyboard orients ocular fixations on computer screen.

This study examined the links between attention, hand movements and eye movements when performed in different spatial areas. Participants performed a visual search task on a computer screen while preparing to press two keyboard keys sequentially with their index. Results showed that the planning of the manual sequence influenced the latency of the first saccade and the placement of the first fixation.

Online advertisement: how are visual strategies affected by the distance and the animation of banners?

Most of studies about online advertisements have indicated that they have a negative impact on users' cognitive processes, especially when they include colorful or animated banners and when they are close to the text to be read. In the present study we assessed the effects of two advertisements features-distance from the text and the animation-on visual strategies during a word-search task and a reading-for-comprehension task using Web-like pages. We hypothesized that the closer the advertisement was to the target text, the more cognitive processing difficulties it would cause.

E-readers and visual fatigue.

The mass digitization of books is changing the way information is created, disseminated and displayed. Electronic book readers (e-readers) generally refer to two main display technologies: the electronic ink (E-ink) and the liquid crystal display (LCD). Both technologies have advantages and disadvantages, but the question whether one or the other triggers less visual fatigue is still open.

Decision-making in information seeking on texts: an eye-fixation-related potentials investigation.

Reading on a web page is known to be not linear and people need to make fast decisions about whether they have to stop or not reading. In such context, reading, and decision-making processes are intertwined and this experiment attempts to separate them through electrophysiological patterns provided by the Eye-Fixation-Related Potentials technique (EFRPs). We conducted an experiment in which EFRPs were recorded while participants read blocks of text that were semantically highly related, moderately related, and unrelated to a given goal.

Methods for comparing scanpaths and saliency maps: strengths and weaknesses.

In this article, we are interested in the computational modeling of visual attention. We report methods commonly used to assess the performance of these kinds of models. We survey the strengths and weaknesses of common assessment methods based on diachronic eye-tracking data.

New insights into ambient and focal visual fixations using an automatic classification algorithm.

Overt visual attention is the act of directing the eyes toward a given area. These eye movements are characterised by saccades and fixations. A debate currently surrounds the role of visual fixations.

Eye fixation-related potentials (EFRPs) during object identification.

Eye fixation-related potential (EFRP) measures electrical brain activity in response to eye fixations. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the EFRPs vary during consecutive eye fixations while subjects were performing an object identification task. Eye fixations evoked P1 and N1 components at the occipital and parietal recording sites.

[Electrophysiological bases of semantic processing of objects].

How pictures and words are stored and processed in the human brain constitute a long-standing question in cognitive psychology. Behavioral studies have yielded a large amount of data addressing this issue. Generally speaking, these data show that there are some interactions between the semantic processing of pictures and words.

No evidence for prolonged latency of saccadic eye movements due to intermittent light of a CRT computer screen.

Despite previous studies it remains unclear, whether saccadic eye movements across computer screens may be adversely affected by the intermittency of light of cathode ray tubes (CRT). We measured the latency of simple saccades to peripheral targets presented on a CRT-screen, operated at refresh rates of 50, 100 and 150 Hz, compared with a special fluorescent lamp display (FLD). Our results suggest that the intermittent light of CRT screens does not prolong the latency of saccades not even relative to a control condition of unmodulated steady light at the FLD.