UNASSIGNED: Successful sentence production requires lexical encoding and ordering them into a correct syntactic structure. It remains unclear how different processes involved in sentence production are affected by healthy aging. We investigated (a) if and how aging affects lexical encoding and syntactic formulation during sentence production, using auditory lexical priming and eye tracking-while-speaking paradigms and (b) if and how verbal working memory contributes to age-related changes in sentence production.
UNASSIGNED: Twenty older and 20 younger adults described transitive and dative action pictures following auditory lexical primes, by which the relative ease of encoding the agent or theme nouns (for transitive pictures) and the theme and goal nouns (for dative pictures) was manipulated. The effects of lexical priming on off-line syntactic production and real-time eye fixations to the primed character were measured.
UNASSIGNED: In offline production, older adults showed comparable priming effects to younger adults, using the syntactic structure that allows earlier mention of the primed lexical item in both transitive and dative sentences. However, older adults showed longer lexical priming effects on eye fixations to the primed character during the early stages of sentence planning. Preliminary analysis indicated that reduced verbal working memory may in part account for longer lexical encoding, particularly for older adults.
UNASSIGNED: These findings indicate that syntactic flexibility for formulating different grammatical structures remains largely robust with aging. However, lexical encoding processes are more susceptible to age-related changes, possibly due to changes in verbal working memory.

This cross-sectional study examined eye movement performance in patients aged 4 to 16 years. Measurements of eye movements were obtained before and after performing therapy for inhibition of four primitive reflexes, asymmetric tonic neck reflex, symmetric tonic neck reflex, labyrinthine tonic reflex and Moro reflex. Subsequently the scores of the four primitive reflexes were compared with the results of five variables: fixation maintenance, % mean saccade size, motility excursions, fixations during excursions and mean duration of fixations. The comparisons showed a significant reduction in evidence of fixation maintenance as well as mean saccade size due to the inhibition of the four primitive reflexes. There was also a significant increase in ocular motility while fixations per saccade and average duration of fixations also decreased significantly. Visual balance between values of both eyes improved in all tests. A device called VisagraphTM III, which measures eye movements, was used for data collection. These results suggest that the oculomotor improvements reflect the involvement of other maturational processes such as the emergence and inhibition of primitive reflexes, the whole reorganization being key to future reading and attentional processes.

Buildings are an integral part of our physical environment and have aesthetic significance with respect to the organizational integrity of architectural elements. While Gestalt principles are essential in design education, their relationship with architectural features remains understudied. The present study explored how Gestalt principles and complexity levels influence evaluations of building façades through the use of questionnaires and eye tracking. Twenty-four two-dimensional black and white façade drawings, manipulated using selected Gestalt principles (similarity and proximity) to achieve different levels of complexity (low, medium & high), were presented to 79 participants. The results suggested a negative linear relationship between aesthetic ratings and complexity levels across selected Gestalt principles. In addition, as expected, participants had the highest number of fixations, shortest fixation durations, and lowest aesthetic ratings for higher levels of complexity. Results involving Gestalt principles revealed that proximity-based designs received higher aesthetic ratings, demanded less time, elicited lower number of fixations, and resulted in shorter fixation durations. Conversely, similarity-based designs received lower aesthetic ratings, demanded more time, elicited higher number of fixations, and resulted in longer fixation durations. These findings offer insights into architectural aesthetic experiences and inform future research directions.

UNASSIGNED: Age-related changes in connected speech production remain a subject of debate, yielding inconsistent findings across various tasks and measures. This study aimed to investigate the effects of aging on picture description tasks using two types of pictures: a standardized picture (the Beach picture) and a culturally and linguistically modified picture tailored for Korean speakers (the Han River picture).
UNASSIGNED: Twenty-four young adults and 22 older adults participated in two picture description tasks while their eye movements were recorded. Word-level linguistic variables were used to assess informativeness (Correct Information Units per minute) and productivity (noun and verb counts per utterance) of connected speech production. Eye-movement measures were employed to evaluate real-time cognitive processing associated with planning connected speech (pre-speech fixation counts and durations; eye fixations before the speech onset of each utterance).
UNASSIGNED: The findings revealed age-related declines in linguistic measures, with older adults exhibiting decreased CIUs per minute and smaller counts of nouns and verbs per utterance. Age-related changes in eye movement measures were evident in that older adults displayed longer pre-speech fixation durations. Unlike younger adults, older adults exhibited higher pre-speech fixation counts on the Han River picture compared to the Beach picture, suggesting cognitive challenges in performing the task that requires producing more words and detailed descriptions. These results suggest that aging is associated with reduced informativeness and productivity of connected speech, as well as a decline in cognitive processing efficiency.

State-of-the-art eye trackers provide valuable information for diagnosing reading problems by measuring and interpreting people\'s gaze paths as they read through text. Abnormal conditions such as visual field defects, however, can seriously confound most of today\'s existing methods for interpreting reading gaze patterns. Our objective was to research how visual field defects impact reading gaze path patterns, so the effects of such neurological pathologies can be explicitly incorporated into more comprehensive reading diagnosis methodologies. A cross-sectional, non-randomized, pilot clinical study including 45 patients with various neurologic disorders and 30 normal controls was designed. Participants underwent ophthalmologic/neuropsychologic and eye-tracker examinations using two reading tests of words and numbers. The results showed that the use of the eye tracker showed that patients with brain damage and an altered visual field require more time to complete a reading-text test by fixating a greater number of times (p < 0.001); with longer fixations (p = 0.03); and a greater number of saccades in these patients (p = 0.04). Our study showed objective differences in eye movement characteristics in patients with neurological diseases and an altered visual field who complained of reading difficulties. These findings should be considered as a bias factor and deserve further investigation.

Flight safety in helicopters is a critical aspect of overall aircraft operational safety management, particularly during engine failures requiring autorotative glide, which makes it extremely challenging for the pilot to land the helicopter successfully. In this study, we evaluated the workload and attention allocation of helicopter pilots under such circumstances. In the experiment, a helicopter flight simulator was used to simulate level flight followed by autorotative glide, with the two phases divided into time segments for data collection. First, the data were visualized using heat maps and saccade sequence diagrams, while changes in eye movement metrics (such as peak value and standard deviation) were statistically analyzed. Finally, the criteria through the inter-criteria correlation (CRITIC) method was used to calculate the weight coefficient for each area of interest. This evaluation system was further applied to analyze and compare the changes in eye-movement data and attention to areas of interest during the two phases. The results revealed a shorter fixation duration, but a greater fixation number during the autorotative glide phase. Further, the mean pupil diameter changed over a larger range than during level flight (in level flight, the mean was 5.229 mm, while the standard deviation was 0.059 mm; in autorotative glide the corresponding values were 5.326 mm and 0.126 mm, respectively). For the tachometer, the weight coefficient matched the color of the heat map (2.7 % and colorless during level flight, but 23.8 % and red during autorotative glide), while those for the airspeed indicator and forward view differed significantly between the two phases. This discrepancy stemmed from the fact that during autorotative glide, the pilots prioritized monitoring aircraft rotation speed and attitude, with a particular focus on the forward view, rotor speed, and airspeed, resulting in a more concentrated attention distribution compared to that achieved during level flight. These results confirmed a significant increase in pilot workload during autorotative glide landing, while a shift was observed from low-frequency long gaze time during level flight to high-frequency short gaze time during autorotative glide. Furthermore, the pilots allocated 81 % of their attention to the tachometer, airspeed indicator, and forward views. Adopting this strategy can improve pilots\' landing success and provide flight students with valuable training advice to prevent landing failures when helicopters lose power.

BACKGROUND: Eye tracking technology not only reveals the acquisition of visual information at fixation but also has the potential to unveil underlying cognitive processes involved in learning to use a multifunction prosthetic hand. It also reveals gaze behaviours observed during standardized tasks and self-chosen tasks. The aim of the study was to explore the use of eye tracking to track learning progress of multifunction hands at two different time points in prosthetic rehabilitation.
METHODS: Three amputees received control training of a multifunction hand with new control strategy. Detailed description of control training was collected first. They wore Tobii Pro2 eye-tracking glasses and performed a set of standardized tasks (required to switch to different grips for each task) after one day of training and at one-year-follow-up (missing data for Subject 3 at the follow up due to socket problem). They also performed a self-chosen task (free to use any grip for any object) and were instructed to perform the task in a way how they would normally do at home. The gaze-overlaid videos were analysed using the Tobii Pro Lab and the following metrics were extracted: fixation duration, saccade amplitude, eye-hand latency, fixation count and time to first fixation.
RESULTS: During control training, the subjects learned 3 to 4 grips. Some grips were easier, and others were more difficult because they forgot or were confused with the switching strategies. At the one-year-follow-up, a decrease in performance time, fixation duration, eye-hand latency, and fixation count was observed in Subject 1 and 2, indicating an improvement in the ability to control the multifunction hand and a reduction of cognitive load. An increase in saccade amplitude was observed in both subjects, suggesting a decrease in difficulty to control the prosthetic hand. During the standardized tasks, the first fixation of all three subjects were on the multifunction hand in all objects. During the self-chosen tasks, the first fixations were mostly on the objects first.
CONCLUSIONS: The qualitative data from control training and the quantitative eye tracking data from clinical standardized tasks provided a rich exploration of cognitive processing in learning to control a multifunction hand. Many prosthesis users prefer multifunction hands and with this study we have demonstrated that a targeted prosthetic training protocol with reliable assessment methods will help to lay the foundation for measuring functional benefits of multifunction hands.

BACKGROUND: Eye-tracking technology could be used to study human factors during teamwork.
OBJECTIVE: This work aimed to compare the visual attention (VA) of a team member acting as both a team leader and managing the airway, compared to a team member performing the focused task of managing the airway in the presence of a dedicated team leader. This work also aimed to report differences in team performance, behavioural skills, and workload between the two groups using validated tools.
METHODS: We conducted a simulation-based, pilot randomised controlled study. The participants included were volunteer paediatric trainees, nurse practitioners, and neonatal nurses. Three teams consisting of four team members were formed. Each team participated in two identical neonatal resuscitation simulation scenarios in a random order, once with and once without a team leader. Using a commercially available eye-tracking device, we analysed VA regarding attention to (1) a manikin, (2) a colleague, and (3) a monitor. Only the trainee who was the airway operator would wear eye-tracking glasses in both simulations.
RESULTS: In total, 6 simulation scenarios and 24 individual role allocations were analysed. Participants in a no-team-leader capacity had a greater number of total fixations on manikin and monitors, though this was not significant. There were no significant differences in team performance, behavioural skills, and individual workload. Physical demand was reported as significantly higher by participants in the group without a team leader. During debriefing, all the teams expressed their preference for having a dedicated team leader.
CONCLUSIONS: In our pilot study using low-cost technology, we could not demonstrate the difference in VA with the presence of a team leader.

BACKGROUND: Ischemic stroke (IS) often leads to cognitive and motor impairments. This study aimed to investigate whether Memory-Guided Saccade Tasks (MGSTs) could be used to assess cognitive function in stroke patients.
METHODS: A secondary data analysis was conducted on 62 individuals with supratentorial IS. Eye-tracking metrics from MGST were correlated with established neuropsychological assessments, including the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).
RESULTS: Age correlated negatively with memory-guided saccade (MGS) accuracy (ρ = -0.274) and positively with late errors (ρ = 0.327). Higher Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores were associated with faster corrective saccades (ρ = 0.259). Increased anxiety (HADS-A) and depression (HADS-D) levels correlated with higher early error rates (ρ = 0.325 and ρ = 0.311, respectively). The Color Trails Test and Digit Span test performance also correlated with various MGS parameters.
CONCLUSIONS: While some correlations were found between cognitive measures and eye-tracking metrics, further research is needed to validate MGST as a tool for cognitive assessment in a more homogenous stroke population.

One key aspect of the human experience is our ongoing stream of thoughts. These thoughts can be broadly categorized into various dimensions, which are associated with different impacts on mood, well-being, and productivity. While the past literature has often identified eye movements associated with a specific thought dimension (task-relatedness) during experimental tasks, few studies have determined if these various thought dimensions can be classified by oculomotor activity during naturalistic tasks. Employing thought sampling, eye tracking, and machine learning, we assessed the classification of nine thought dimensions (task-relatedness, freely moving, stickiness, goal-directedness, internal-external orientation, self-orientation, others orientation, visual modality, and auditory modality) across seven multi-day recordings of seven participants during self-selected computer tasks. Our analyses were based on a total of 1715 thought probes across 63 h of recordings. Automated binary-class classification of the thought dimensions was based on statistical features extracted from eye movement measures, including fixation and saccades. These features all served as input into a random forest (RF) classifier, which was then improved with particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based selection of the best subset of features for classifier performance. The mean Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) values from the PSO-based RF classifier across the thought dimensions ranged from 0.25 to 0.54, indicating above-chance level performance in all nine thought dimensions across participants and improved performance compared to the RF classifier without feature selection. Our findings highlight the potential of machine learning approaches combined with eye movement measures for the real-time prediction of naturalistic ongoing thoughts, particularly in ecologically valid contexts.