Objectively Measuring Mind Wandering While Reading

Joshua Magee Author

04/02/2021 Added

16 Plays

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This exploratory study approached the task of objectively detecting mind wandering while reading text using eye tracking technology.

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[00:00:00.290]Hello, my name is Josh Magee,
[00:00:02.210]and this is my presentation for the study
[00:00:04.570]of Objectively Measuring Mind Wandering While Reading Text,
[00:00:08.090]an exploratory eye-tracking study.
[00:00:11.020]For the introduction and background,
[00:00:13.260]many teachers, students, and professionals
[00:00:15.400]require training and instruction
[00:00:16.850]using informative reading and text.
[00:00:19.270]Reading, and more importantly,
[00:00:21.020]comprehending what was read is fundamental
[00:00:24.180]to most professional and academic training.
[00:00:27.550]As adults, many people can recall,
[00:00:29.800]perhaps one time in their lives,
[00:00:31.700]when they began reading something
[00:00:33.600]and were so enthralled in the content
[00:00:35.420]that they continued reading,
[00:00:36.570]practically on the edge of their seat
[00:00:38.190]to learn what the next paragraph had in store.
[00:00:40.730]Before they realized how much time had passed,
[00:00:42.780]the entire content of the material was read
[00:00:45.440]and could be recalled with great detail.
[00:00:48.290]This is something that many people may have experienced
[00:00:51.490]one or two times in their lifetime.
[00:00:54.410]Now I'd like you to think about how many times
[00:00:56.300]you have read something,
[00:00:57.760]made it to the end of the paragraph,
[00:00:59.440]and realized that you do not remember
[00:01:01.710]the last three sentences of what you just read.
[00:01:05.270]Many adults have likely experienced this
[00:01:07.160]a couple of times today.
[00:01:10.540]This concept,
[00:01:11.670]of the eyes seeing text
[00:01:14.300]and the mind not comprehending the content
[00:01:17.550]due to their thought process,
[00:01:19.000]focusing on something other than the text,
[00:01:21.650]is the type of mind wandering that this study sought out
[00:01:24.610]to objectively measure using eye-tracking technology.
[00:01:29.200]For objective and purpose,
[00:01:30.750]the objective of this study was
[00:01:32.460]to find a method of objectively measuring mind wandering
[00:01:36.900]while reading text using eye tracking technology.
[00:01:40.240]We used objective measures
[00:01:42.380]in the hopes of reducing the potential confounds
[00:01:45.340]of subjective questioning of the participants.
[00:01:49.210]The purpose was to find a reliable measure of eye movement
[00:01:53.280]that indicated comprehension
[00:01:55.407]and a reliable measure of eye movement
[00:01:57.600]that indicated mind wandering.
[00:01:59.750]In other words,
[00:02:00.830]when the mind no longer comprehends what is being read,
[00:02:04.660]and the eyes are just going through the motions,
[00:02:08.420]can we accurately and objectively measure when that happens?
[00:02:14.340]The ability to passively measure
[00:02:17.350]when a participant is no longer comprehending
[00:02:20.340]text that they are reading has many valuable applications
[00:02:24.010]in professional training, industrial safety,
[00:02:27.020]and, of course, academic performance.
[00:02:30.610]For our methods to this study,
[00:02:32.890]we have taken a new approach
[00:02:34.380]to attempting to measure a correlation
[00:02:36.500]between eye movement and comprehension.
[00:02:39.500]In the past,
[00:02:40.530]many other studies have attempted to use subjective probes
[00:02:44.370]to detect mind wandering while reading.
[00:02:46.290]In other words,
[00:02:47.500]they would directly ask the participants,
[00:02:50.387]"Were you mind wandering?"
[00:02:52.150]And if the participant said, "yes,"
[00:02:53.680]then that portion up to that question would be analyzed
[00:02:56.780]and compared to times when they said no.
[00:02:59.500]For this experiment,
[00:03:01.040]we went for a completely objective approach.
[00:03:04.600]The participants were not informed
[00:03:06.610]about what the study was trying to find.
[00:03:08.850]The participants,
[00:03:09.860]following consent to participate in a briefing of the task,
[00:03:13.220]completed 20 trials of reading paragraphs of text.
[00:03:17.030]They did this on a monitor while being observed
[00:03:19.470]using an EyeLink 1000.
[00:03:21.470]They were told that there would be a memory test
[00:03:23.600]at the end over these 20 paragraphs.
[00:03:26.960]Each of these 20 paragraphs were sourced
[00:03:29.570]from 20 different public domain novels,
[00:03:32.530]so each is at least 80 years old.
[00:03:34.930]They were presented out of context
[00:03:36.960]of the rest of their respective novel
[00:03:38.730]but labeled as being an excerpt
[00:03:40.350]from the novel that they were sourced from.
[00:03:42.900]Of these 20 paragraphs,
[00:03:44.930]there would be 10 that would be modified
[00:03:46.950]with an obscure or low frequency word
[00:03:49.780]that would be edited into the modified paragraphs.
[00:03:52.460]Importantly, these low frequency words
[00:03:55.270]would be intentionally used incorrectly.
[00:03:58.890]The reason for this is that it has been established
[00:04:02.470]by other studies that fixation duration and rereading
[00:04:05.930]is measurably different
[00:04:07.880]on unfamiliar terms when reading text.
[00:04:11.080]The combination of a low-frequency word replacement
[00:04:14.700]and the intentional incorrect use of said replaced word
[00:04:19.290]would increase the likelihood of the participant
[00:04:21.560]having measurably different fixation duration on that word
[00:04:25.560]while comprehending the text.
[00:04:27.620]However, if the participant was mind wandering,
[00:04:31.250]it would be very likely
[00:04:32.450]that they would simply not have any change at all,
[00:04:35.880]if they were not comprehending what they were reading
[00:04:38.860]in terms of their eye movement.
[00:04:41.860]Each participant read 20 paragraphs.
[00:04:44.750]10 of these paragraphs were
[00:04:46.280]unmodified from their original content.
[00:04:49.050]10 of these paragraphs were edited
[00:04:50.960]with a single replaced word.
[00:04:53.150]Of those 10 edited trials,
[00:04:55.780]five of them have a single noun changed
[00:04:58.590]to an obscure or low-frequency use noun.
[00:05:01.460]The other five of those trials have a single verb replaced
[00:05:05.950]with an obscure, low-frequency use verb.
[00:05:09.540]The participants read all 20 paragraphs
[00:05:12.610]in one session, one-at-a-time.
[00:05:15.460]There is no indication
[00:05:17.320]of which ones have modifications made to the participant.
[00:05:20.980]The order is randomized.
[00:05:22.920]The participants do not know
[00:05:24.270]that there have been any edits made.
[00:05:26.700]The participants are not asked
[00:05:28.670]if they were mind wandering at any point during the study.
[00:05:31.940]The participants are only told
[00:05:34.330]that there will be a memory test at the end of the study.
[00:05:37.740]There is only a verbal informal debriefing
[00:05:40.650]that could be easily misinterpreted as a memory test.
[00:05:43.780]There is no formal memory test
[00:05:45.393]that the participants complete.
[00:05:48.570]And now, for our results.
[00:05:50.140]This exploratory study has produced
[00:05:52.150]a very large quantity of data.
[00:05:54.680]The preliminary data analysis has shown
[00:05:56.980]that the volume of data
[00:05:58.110]requires significantly more in-depth analysis
[00:06:00.860]than initially anticipated.
[00:06:02.830]The somewhat erratic nature of eye movement
[00:06:05.840]that appears to occur
[00:06:07.510]when mind wandering is suspected to simultaneously occur
[00:06:10.820]produces a significant challenge
[00:06:12.530]when attempted to quantify eye movement measurement.
[00:06:15.620]In other words,
[00:06:16.453]when the participant is suspected
[00:06:18.210]to have stopped comprehension,
[00:06:20.220]but their eyes are still going through the motions,
[00:06:22.800]they seldom seem to follow the lines of text very well.
[00:06:26.560]This makes the measurement and quantifying
[00:06:28.610]of mind wandering more challenging.
[00:06:30.920]However, many of the preliminary results do show promise
[00:06:34.580]that a mathematically measurable
[00:06:36.150]means of objectively detecting mind wandering
[00:06:38.910]using eye tracking could be possible.
[00:06:42.490]The future directions of this study show much promise.
[00:06:46.160]The preliminary results strongly suggest
[00:06:48.510]that the methods of this study
[00:06:50.060]have likely collected many trials
[00:06:51.730]where a participant has gone
[00:06:52.950]from comprehending the content to mind-wandering
[00:06:56.080]before the end of the respective trial.
[00:06:58.760]We have applied for a follow-up study
[00:07:00.460]to make a much more thorough analysis of the information
[00:07:03.300]from the hundreds of trials that have been recorded.
[00:07:06.520]This study is an important early step in finding ways
[00:07:09.840]to better understand mind wandering while reading.
[00:07:13.200]It is my hope that,
[00:07:14.280]through follow-up studies and collaborations,
[00:07:16.870]we can gain a better understanding of
[00:07:18.870]not just when,
[00:07:20.480]but eventually learn how
[00:07:21.780]and why mind wandering occurs while reading,
[00:07:25.180]potentially improving text comprehension,
[00:07:27.650]especially for academic performance purposes
[00:07:30.010]as a very large area
[00:07:31.920]where I would like to see this research
[00:07:33.670]lead to improvements.
[00:07:36.070]In addition to the followup study to more thoroughly analyze
[00:07:39.750]the information collected from this study,
[00:07:42.140]there is another collaboration study that has been proposed
[00:07:45.480]that would use a proprietary software
[00:07:47.340]to conduct eye tracking while reading scrolling text.
[00:07:51.310]The goal is still to objectively measure
[00:07:53.130]mind wandering while reading,
[00:07:54.750]but this would be done with a more common
[00:07:56.560]and real-world, modern method of reading.
[00:07:59.370]Thank you.

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Objectively Measuring Mind Wandering While Reading

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