Eye Movements and Word Recognition during Visual Semantic Search: Differences between Expert and Novice Language Learners

Psychology in Russia: State of the Art. 2019. Vol. 12. No. 1. P. 129–146.

Blinnikova I. V., Rabeson M. D., Izmalkova A.

Background. Te empirical studies in visual word recognition done over the past years have been focused on the infuence of contextual, lexical, and semantic properties. Researchers also have taken into consideration the role of individual diferences in the word recognition process, e.g., vocabulary knowledge. Objective. Tis study focuses on the cognitive strategies used by expert and novice language learners in a visual semantic search task. Our hypothesis is that the level of ESL (English as a Second Language) mastery would infuence the word recognition and oculomotor patterns applied by the participants. Design. Te participants–native Russian speakers–were divided into three groups according to their level of English language mastery. Te experimental task involved a search for horizontally- or vertically-oriented English words in letter matrices (15*15); the frequency and length of the words varied. Performance measures (number and orientation of the found words) were registered, along with the participants’ eye movements. Results. Word search efciency depended on the frequency, length, and orientation of the words and the participant’s language mastery; however, these factors did not interact.Te data show that oculomotor events are denser in experts’ results. Learners with diferent levels of language mastery use different information-processing patterns, which are refected in the proportions of fxation and saccade durations. Two complementary trends were found: word search efciency is efected, frst, by a longer gaze scan path, and second, by the focal mode of visual information-processing, manifested in a combination of longer fxations and shorter saccades. Conclusion. Te registration of eye-movement patterns in visual semantic search tasks reveals the characteristics of efective and non-efective cognitive strategies used by ESL students at diferent levels of language competence.

Keywords: visual word recognition, visual information processing, visual search, cognitive strategies, expert and novice language learner