Began searching for an appropriate core text for reading research. Began with Wikipedia but ended up migrating to Connexions.
Have downloaded and upacked several EPUB files from Connexions and re-uploaded to own server. Will need to edit, hyperlink, and format docs.
Also analyzed one text for readability using Flesch with varying results. Will post those soon.
Began looking for articles on the safety of infrared exposure, especially in eye tracking scenarios. So far results are mixed or difficult to generalize to eyetracking. The biomedical research enters into the wild and crazy world of animal subject research: “Animals from these two irradiated groups were subdivided into two subgroups; one of them was decapitated directly after IR exposure, while the other subgroup was decapitated 1 hour post exposure.” Unfortunately, my dissatisfaction with this particular article was because they didn’t compare results by wavelengths groups. Now someone else is going to have to kills some rabbits…
Need a couple more articles, then on to summarize and post findings.
First attempt at running USAProxy on a simple LAMP install has failed, primarily, I think, because I don’t really understand how Java is supposed to work on a web server. This will need a nice Saterday afternoon of troubleshooting, I think.
But, unfortunately, not this Saturday.
Purchased hardware to test the ITU GazeTracker oss, including Thorlabs camera, lens, IR filter, and two IR lights –details forthcoming
Successfully up and running in office on Win XP, sans log files.
Will troubleshoot next week.
I’ve been trying to sort out types of reading processes (aka “styles”, aka “strategies”, aka “patterns”) that relate to differing goals. Let me summarize a handful of key identifications and distinctions that have been made in the research literature:
I’m still synthesizing the meaning of these distinctions and relationships of the categories to cognition. For instance, depth suggests completeness of coverage of the text, and reflectiveness suggests degrees of attentiveness, even interaction with the text. Both of these are process variables. So the gear of learning, for example, which aims to be deep and attentive, suggests increased demands on cognitive resources such as working memory. Speed is a reader variable, but it is also limited by the reading strategy or type as an aspect of process, e.g. skimming is meant to be faster that rauding, while memorizing is at least initially slower. Intensive reading, such as learning, is presumably slower than extensive reading for pleasure. I haven’t yet looked at how these process variables affect outcomes, though I have seen such studies referenced in the literature.
I’ve attempted to visually approximate the relationship of Carver’s gears of reading to the following aspects of process: depth / completeness, attention, and speed:
The “measurements” of these areas are speculative, but might eventually be teased out by research. I do not have much experience visualizing relationships between variables beyond basic, two-dimensional charts, so if you have other ideas, please share.
The real purpose of this exercise is to begin thinking about types of reading and their relationship to cognitive processes and models.
Professional-grade commercial eyetracking systems can cost $15,000 (EyeTech) or more (Tobii). Renting is cheaper–about 10% of the retail cost of these systems for a month–but still considerable. And while commercial eyetracking software has advanced significantly in the last few years (e.g. headgear no longer required) and is continuing to advance at an impressive pace (e.g. integration with mobile devices such as laptops and tablets), there is also a growing community focused on open source solutions for eyetracking. The most interesting and consolidated of these communities appears to be around the ITU GazeTracker software, originally developed by the Gaze Group. The community congregates around an discussion forum to discuss the GazeTracker software, specific projects, and DIY hardware builds like Martin Tall’s $600 “Raven”:
The Raven is by no means the cheapest option, but it supposedly offers great precision. Since I’m not able to take any courses this spring, a little DIY building may be in order.
I just had the wacky idea that I could force users in an experimental situation to engage in movements that help track their reading behavior in a web browser. This method would employ Javascript and CSS–in short, the script would obscure text outside of the foveal vision area–the readable foveal vision area would be centered near the cursor, requiring the user to move the cursor with her fixations. Combine this with coordinate-based Javascript mouse tracking and user input that reports to a server via AJAX a la UsaProxy, and you’ve got an interesting, albeit limited, method of tracking eye movements.
A quick search on Google shows that David Walsh has already worked out a very elegant script that approximates this. My own idea would be to not use a “flashlight” effect, but a “frosted window” effect that retains basic shapes, features, and colors, but obscures microfeatures–i.e. the graphemes–of text. Here’s one mock-up to illustrate the idea:
Now there are a number of obvious problems with this idea in research practice–the obfuscation may significantly alter the layout and (potentially distracting) elements of the page; it may negatively affect users ability to gauge document length and position; it wouldn’t necessary reflect normal reading behavior; and, of course, it could be terribly annoying to the reader, etc. That’s just off the top of my head; if you have more ideas, please share.
I was in diagramming mode this afternoon, thinking through different aspects of the processes and interactions of reading. One sketch led me to the following simple visualization of printed vs. digital media. This draft excludes forms and modes, and may only be useful as a component of my own understanding:
“According to many educational researchers and contrary to the arguments of those pushing for experimental research as the gold standard, the messiness of real-world practice must be recognized, understood, and integrated as part of theoretical claims if the claims are to have real-world explanatory value. From this perspective, examining teaching and learning as isolated variables within laboratory or other artificial contexts will necessarily lead to understandings that are incomplete. … Within learning environments, so-called confounding variables necessarily occur and must be taken into account (not controlled) if the findings are to be relevant to practitioners.” (“Design-Based Research” in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, p154)
smt2 and Usaproxy set up on fresh server
I paid for a new, experimental web host today with shared Java hosting (4java.ca) where I’ve begun to set up Usaproxy and smt2 along with a few openly licensed reading texts.
Work in progress at Optop.us Project