Some empirical tests of an interactive activation model of eye movement control in reading

This paper describes some empirical tests of an interactive activation model of eye movement control in reading (the “Glenmore” model). Qualitatively, the Glenmore model can account within one mechanism for preview and spillover effects, regressions, progressions, and refixations. It decouples the decision about when to move the eyes from the word recognition process. The time course of activity in a fixate centre (FC) determines the triggering of a saccade. The other main feature of the model is the use of a saliency map that acts as an arena for the interplay of bottom-up visual features of the text, and top-down lexical features. These factors combine to create a pattern of activation that selects one word as the saccade target. Even within the relatively simple framework proposed here, a coherent account can be provided for a range of eye movement control phenomena that have hitherto proved problematic to reconcile. The paper examines the performance of the model compared to data gathered in an empirical study of subjects reading a German text. The quantitative fit of the model, while reasonable, highlighted some limitations in the model that will need to be addressed in future versions.