Abstract
Parameters like saccade length, fixation duration and regression frequency reveal a lot about
the text in silent reading. Like whether the text is conceptually difficult or not, has difficult
words or not and lot more.
This is in accordance with the view that eye's saccadic movements reflect the online
cognitive processing of the text being read(Processing versus Oculomotor model).
Confusion in parsing information is reflected in reduction in saccade length, and increase in
fixation duration and regression frequency.
Experiments have been conducted to show that as the frequency of word increases, the
fixation time on that particular word decreases. Short within-word regression indicates
difficulty in processing that word, hence frequency can also play a role here.
Morover, parafoveal preview(slight focus on first few letters of the word on right of
currently fixated word) triggers preliminary parafoveal word analysis. Here also parafoveal
preview does better if the parafoveal word has higher frequency. Richer the analysis, faster
the reading rate.
We conduct a similar experiment that analyses whether infrequent words are
difficult to comprehend with words drawn from "hindi" language.