Eye Movement Measures to Study Global Text Processing

This chapter describes the applicability of the eye-tracking method in studying global text processing. Eye tracking is used to study basic reading processes and syntactic parsing, but there are few studies where eye tracking is employed to examine global text processing. As one moves from the study of lexical processing to syntactic processing, the potential units of analysis increase in both number and size. There are four relevant levels of processing in the study of syntactic processing: (1) the word at which a parsing choice is expected to be made or a syntactic ambiguity to reveal itself, (2) the phrase, (3) the clause, and (4) the whole sentence. Related to the increase in the number and size of potentially interesting units of analysis, the mental processing associated with syntactic processes is more complex and varied than the mental processing associated with lexical processing. Thus, syntactic effects on eye movements are correspondingly more complex than lexical effects on eye movements.