FG 868: Computational Modeling of Behavioral, Cognitive and Neural Dynamics - Teilprojekt A 2: The timeline of world recognition and oculomotor control in reading

Reading, one of the most complex processes the human brain is capable of, involves the coordinated timing of many (psycho)logically distinguishable subprocesses, of which the two most basic are word recognition and oculomotor control. There has been much progress in computational modeling of these subprocesses. Still, the major challenge for any model of reading remains to be fully met: explaining the nature and timing of the mental events which occur during and across fixations, i.e. the resting periods of the eye during which the brain can pick up and process the information necessary to extract meaning from text. One obstacle for this fascinating scientific inquiry is the fact that as yet recordings of brain potentials that would allow precisely measuring the time course of mental events during fixations have been largely excluded from natural reading conditions. In the present project we investigate important and controversial issues in word recognition and eye movement control by means of co-registering eye movements and electric brain potentials during left-to-right reading.