Relating Eye-Tracking Measures With Changes In Knowledge on Search Tasks

We conducted an eye-tracking study where 30 participants performed searches on the web. We measured their topical knowledge before and after each task. Their eye-fixations were labelled as "reading" or "scanning". The series of reading fixations in a line, called "reading-sequences" were characterized by their length in pixels, fixation duration, and the number of fixations making up the sequence. We hypothesize that differences in knowledge-change of participants are reflected in their eye-tracking measures related to reading. Our results show that the participants with higher change in knowledge differ significantly in terms of their total reading-sequence-length, reading-sequence-duration, and number of reading fixations, when compared to participants with lower knowledge-change.