TY  - JOUR
A1  - Brzezicka, Aneta
A1  - Krejtz, Izabela
A1  - von Hecker, Ulrich
A1  - Laubrock, Jochen
T1  - Eye movement evidence for defocused attention in dysphoria - A perceptual span analysis
JF  - International journal of psychophysiology
N2  - The defocused attention hypothesis (von Hecker and Meiser, 2005) assumes that negative mood broadens attention, whereas the analytical rumination hypothesis (Andrews and Thompson, 2009) suggests a narrowing of the attentional focus with depression. We tested these conflicting hypotheses by directly measuring the perceptual span in groups of dysphoric and control subjects, using eye tracking. In the moving window paradigm, information outside of a variable-width gaze-contingent window was masked during reading of sentences. In measures of sentence reading time and mean fixation duration, dysphoric subjects were more pronouncedly affected than controls by a reduced window size. This difference supports the defocused attention hypothesis and seems hard to reconcile with a narrowing of attentional focus.
KW  - Dysphoria
KW  - Defocused attention
KW  - Eye tracking
KW  - Moving window paradigm
KW  - Perceptual span
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2011.09.022
SN  - 0167-8760
VL  - 85
IS  - 1
SP  - 129
EP  - 133
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schad, Daniel
A1  - Engbert, Ralf
T1  - The zoom lens of attention simulating shuffled versus normal text reading using the SWIFT model
JF  - Visual cognition
N2  - Assumptions on the allocation of attention during reading are crucial for theoretical models of eye guidance. The zoom lens model of attention postulates that attentional deployment can vary from a sharp focus to a broad window. The model is closely related to the foveal load hypothesis, i.e., the assumption that the perceptual span is modulated by the difficulty of the fixated word. However, these important theoretical concepts for cognitive research have not been tested quantitatively in eye movement models. Here we show that the zoom lens model, implemented in the SWIFT model of saccade generation, captures many important patterns of eye movements. We compared the model's performance to experimental data from normal and shuffled text reading. Our results demonstrate that the zoom lens of attention might be an important concept for eye movement control in reading.
KW  - Computational modelling
KW  - Eye movements
KW  - Foveal load hypothesis
KW  - Perceptual span
KW  - Reading
KW  - Zoom lens model of attention
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2012.670143
SN  - 1350-6285
SN  - 1464-0716
VL  - 20
IS  - 4-5
SP  - 391
EP  - 421
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hove
ER  -