Neural Correlates Of Individual Differences In Fixation Duration During Natural Reading

Keywords

Eye movements; Eyetracking; FMRI; Individual differences; Reading

Abstract

Reading requires integration of language and cognitive processes with attention and eye movement control. Individuals differ in their reading ability, but little is known about the neurocognitive processes associated with these individual differences. To investigate this issue, we combined eyetracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), simultaneously recording eye movements and blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) activity while subjects read text passages. We found that the variability and skew of fixation duration distributions across individuals, as assessed by ex-Gaussian analyses, decreased with increasing neural activity in regions associated with the cortical eye movement control network (left frontal eye fields [FEF], left intraparietal sulcus [IPS], left inferior frontal gyrus [IFG] and right IFG). The results suggest that individual differences in fixation duration during reading are related to underlying neurocognitive processes associated with the eye movement control system and its relationship to language processing. The results also show that eye movements and fMRI can be combined to investigate the neural correlates of individual differences in natural reading.

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Publication Title

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Volume

71

Issue

1 Special Issue

Number of Pages

314-323

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2017.1329322

Socpus ID

85044129135 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85044129135

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS