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Lévy-like diffusion in eye movements during spoken-language comprehension

Damian G. Stephen1, Daniel Mirman2,3, James S. Magnuson1,3, and James A. Dixon1,3

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-1020, USA
  • 2Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, 1200 West Tabor Road, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19141, USA
  • 3Haskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA

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Phys. Rev. E 79, 056114 – Published 27 May, 2009

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.79.056114

Abstract

This study explores the diffusive properties of human eye movements during a language comprehension task. In this task, adults are given auditory instructions to locate named objects on a computer screen. Although it has been convention to model visual search as standard Brownian diffusion, we find evidence that eye movements are hyperdiffusive. Specifically, we use comparisons of maximum-likelihood fit as well as standard deviation analysis and diffusion entropy analysis to show that visual search during language comprehension exhibits Lévy-like rather than Gaussian diffusion.

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Phys. Rev. E 79, 056114– Published 27 May, 2009
  • Received 3 November 2008

© 2009 American Physical Society

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