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Abstract
Assumptions on the allocation of attention during reading are crucial for theoretical models of eye guidance. The zoom lens model of attention postulates that attentional deployment can vary from a sharp focus to a broad window. The model is closely related to the foveal load hypothesis, i.e., the assumption that the perceptual span is modulated by the difficulty of the fixated word. However, these important theoretical concepts for cognitive research have not been tested quantitatively in eye movement models. Here we show that the zoom lens model, implemented in the SWIFT model of saccade generation, captures many important patterns of eye movements. We compared the model's performance to experimental data from normal and shuffled text reading. Our results demonstrate that the zoom lens of attention might be an important concept for eye movement control in reading.
Acknowledgements
We thank Albrecht W. Inhoff, Keith Rayner and Greg Zelinsky for valuable comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Grant EN 471/2–1 and FOR 868). Supplementary information as well as data, analysis scripts, and source code for SWIFT 3 simulations are available upon request and at the Potsdam Mind Research Repository, at http://read.psych.uni-potsdam.de/pmr2/.