TY - JOUR

T1 - Online eye tracking and real-time sentence processing

T2 - On opportunities and efficacy for capturing psycholinguistic effects of different magnitudes and diversity

AU - Prystauka, Yanina

AU - Altmann, Gerry T.M.

AU - Rothman, Jason

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023.

PY - 2024/6/30

Y1 - 2024/6/30

N2 - Online research methods have the potential to facilitate equitable accessibility to otherwise-expensive research resources, as well as to more diverse populations and language combinations than currently populate our studies. In psycholinguistics specifically, webcam-based eye tracking is emerging as a powerful online tool capable of capturing sentence processing effects in real time. The present paper asks whether webcam-based eye tracking provides the necessary granularity to replicate effects—crucially both large and small—that tracker-based eye tracking has shown. Using the Gorilla Experiment Builder platform, this study set out to replicate two psycholinguistic effects: a robust one, the verb semantic constraint effect, first reported in Altmann and Kamide, Cognition 73(3), 247–264 (1999), and a smaller one, the lexical interference effect, first examined by Kukona et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(2), 326 (2014). Webcam-based eye tracking was able to replicate both effects, thus showing that its functionality is not limited to large effects. Moreover, the paper also reports two approaches to computing statistical power and discusses the differences in their outputs. Beyond discussing several important methodological, theoretical, and practical implications, we offer some further technical details and advice on how to implement webcam-based eye-tracking studies. We believe that the advent of webcam-based eye tracking, at least in respect of the visual world paradigm, will kickstart a new wave of more diverse studies with more diverse populations.

AB - Online research methods have the potential to facilitate equitable accessibility to otherwise-expensive research resources, as well as to more diverse populations and language combinations than currently populate our studies. In psycholinguistics specifically, webcam-based eye tracking is emerging as a powerful online tool capable of capturing sentence processing effects in real time. The present paper asks whether webcam-based eye tracking provides the necessary granularity to replicate effects—crucially both large and small—that tracker-based eye tracking has shown. Using the Gorilla Experiment Builder platform, this study set out to replicate two psycholinguistic effects: a robust one, the verb semantic constraint effect, first reported in Altmann and Kamide, Cognition 73(3), 247–264 (1999), and a smaller one, the lexical interference effect, first examined by Kukona et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(2), 326 (2014). Webcam-based eye tracking was able to replicate both effects, thus showing that its functionality is not limited to large effects. Moreover, the paper also reports two approaches to computing statistical power and discusses the differences in their outputs. Beyond discussing several important methodological, theoretical, and practical implications, we offer some further technical details and advice on how to implement webcam-based eye-tracking studies. We believe that the advent of webcam-based eye tracking, at least in respect of the visual world paradigm, will kickstart a new wave of more diverse studies with more diverse populations.

KW - Online research

KW - Sentence processing

KW - Tracker-based eye tracking

KW - Webcam-based eye tracking

U2 - 10.3758/s13428-023-02176-4

DO - 10.3758/s13428-023-02176-4

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 37528290

AN - SCOPUS:85166296739

VL - 56

SP - 3504

EP - 3522

JO - Behavior Research Methods

JF - Behavior Research Methods

SN - 1554-351X

IS - 4

ER -