Jana Holsanova

Pictures and spoken descriptions elicit similar eye movements during mental imagery, both in light and in complete darkness

This study provides evidence that eye movements reflect the positions of objects while participants listen to a spoken description, retell a previously heard spoken description, and describe a previously seen picture. This effect is equally strong in retelling from memory, irrespective of whether the original elicitation was spoken or visual. In addition, this effect occurs both while watching a blank white board and while sitting in complete darkness. This study includes 4 experiments. The first 2 experiments measured eye movements of participants looking at a blank white board. Experiment 1 monitors eye movements of participants on 2 occasions: first, when participants listened to a prerecorded spoken scene description; second, when participants were later retelling it from memory. Experiment 2 first monitored eye movements of participants as they studied a complex picture visually, and then later as they described it from memory. The second pair of experiments (Experiments 3 and 4) replicated Experiments 1 and 2 with the only difference being that they were executed in complete darkness. This method of analysis differentiated between eye movements that are categorically correct relative to the positions of the whole eye gaze pattern (global correspondence) and eye movements that are only locally correct (local correspondence). The discussion relates the findings to the current debate on mental imagery.

Entry points and reading paths on the newspaper spread: Comparing semiotic analysis with eye-tracking measurements.

The aim of this article is to compare general assumptions about newspaper reading with eye-tracking data from readers’ actual interaction with a newspaper. First, we extract assumptions about the way people read newspapers from socio-semiotic research. Second, we apply these assumptions by analysing a newspaper spread; this is done without any previous knowledge of actual reading behaviour. Finally, we use eye-tracking to empirically examine so-called entry points and reading paths. Eye movement data on reading newspaper spreads are analysed in three different ways: the time sequence in which different areas attract attention is calculated in order to determine reading priorities; the amount of time spent on different areas is calculated in order to determine which areas have been read most; the depth of attention is calculated in order to determine how carefully those areas have been read. General assumptions extracted from the socio-semiotic framework are compared to the results of the actual behaviour of subjects reading the newspaper spread. The results show that the empirical data confirm some of the extracted assumptions. The reading paths of the five subjects participating in the eye-tracking tests suggest that there are three main categories of readers: editorial readers, overview readers and focused readers.

Reading or scanning? A study of newspaper and net paper reading

Net paper readers have been shown to read deeper into articles than newspaper readers. It has also been claimed that newspaper readers rather scan than read newspapers. Do these findings mean that net paper readers read proportionally more than newspaper readers? This paper presents results showing that in fact net paper readers scan more and read less than newspaper readers. We furthermore investigate whether this result can be expained by the difference in layout, navigation structure and purpose of reading between the two media.

Visual and Verbal Focus Patterns when Describing Pictures.

Are there similarities between the way in which we perceive pictures visually and the way we describe them verbally? How can units in eye movement data be compared to units in spoken language data? One of the most important hypotheses is that there are similar principles for processing visual and verbal information (Just and Carpenter, 1976; Chafe, 1994).

Tracking visual segmentation: connecting semiotic and cognitive perspectives

This article introduces a new methodology for deriving the dynamics of visual segmentation in relation to the underlying cognitive processes involved. The method combines social semiotics approaches to visual segmentation with eye-tracking studies on authentic image viewing and simultaneous image description. The authors’ thesis is that visual segmentation suggested by the social semiotic approach is traceable in the behaviour of the viewers who perceive images while creating meaning. From this perspective, visual zooming is seen as both perceptually, cognitively, grammatically and analytically relevant. The interdisciplinary approach developed in the article presents new perspectives on the ways images are segmented and interpreted.

Examples as Crucial Arguments on 'others'

Abstract In this article we take the classic meaning of exemplum as a point of departure to show how examples are marked and used in oral discourse on ‘others’. The empirical material is a transcribed focus group interview with Swedish students talking about a trip to Warsaw. Examples may be marked in explicit ways but also in implicit ways. Some examples seem recognizable by their allusive nature, others by animated talk or quotations. Examples have various functions. They specify things but restrict them at the same time. They may serve as objectifications of an argument, they may mobilize associations, display attitudes, or indicate ‘types’ of persons or items. Some examples are virtual; they exemplify what could happen, or what never happened. Speakers may question another’s argument by referring to counterexamples, or request examples and thereby ‘disarm’ an opponent. Examples are also a target for protests. A dissatisfied listener may consider others’ examples as misleading, badly chosen, or too few. In general, examples serve as shortened induction. They are articulated in relation to something general, vague, or abstract. Typically, a speaker confirms, challenges, or in other ways elaborates an argument with the aid of examples, in order to convince and please the audience.

Perceiving and Producing the Frog Story

Consider the screen-shot in Figure 1. It is derived from a recording of a computerbased narrative task, using the word-less picture story Frog where are you? (Mayer, 1969) as elicitation instrument (see also Berman & Slobin 1994). The screen-shot was taken 2 minutes and 58 seconds into the recording. At that point, the subject, a 23-year old Swedish university student, had just finished writing in relation to the first picture (out of twenty-four) of the story. How can we get a handle on the processes behind the product in figure 1? How did the flow of writing interact with the distribution of visual attention? These are the main questions addressed in the present paper. Starting from some preliminaries in reading and writing research, we take the step to presenting a methodology and an analysis example from a new research project1 where computer logging of writing activity is combined with eyetracking to derive a profile of the interaction between picture viewing and writing during the production of a picture-elicited narrative.

Menschen "fünfter Klasse": Reden über Abwesende in der Alltagskommunikation am Beispiel tschechisch-sprachiger Daten

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden Analysen von aktuellen, nichtelizitierten tschechischen Alltagsgesprachen vorgestellt, in denen die nationale/ethnische Problematik thematisiert wird. Das Ziel der Analyse ist die Rekonstruktion der Gestaltung des nationalen/ethnischen Selbst- und Fremdbildes im Diskurs anhand dessen, wie in der veranderten politischen Lage (nach der Teilung der Tschechoslowakei) die neue tschechische Identitat im Gesprach formuliert wird. Gleichzeitig wollen wir im Detail zeigen, aufweiche Art und Weise die Alltagskommunikation Zuge des Nationalismus und Rassismus (im Sinne von van Dijk 1984) annehmen kann.

A Cognitive Approach to Audio Description

Holsanova presents theoretical and methodological approaches relevant for the research on audio description (AD) and exemplifies the application of these approaches by studies on live AD of films conducted at Lund University. A cognitive, reception-oriented perspective on AD and the framework of embodied cognition are in focus. It is claimed that previous research on scene perception, scene description and mental imagery can be preferably adopted in the study of AD. It is further argued that an interdisciplinary framework, integration of theoretical approaches and triangulation of methods is necessary in order to investigate such a complex phenomenon as AD.