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This paper provides a short overview of current issues in research on continuous reading in non-Roman orthographies. At the same time it also serves as an introduction to the present Reading and Writing Special Issue on this topic. The main questions examined in the contributions to this volume are closely related to issues that have been central to research debates on reading in English, German and French. However, we argue that these innovative approaches to the dynamics of reading in Chinese, Japanese and Korean go far beyond a simple comparative research strategy. Instead, by illuminating phenomena like word segmentation, parafoveal processing and semantic analysis from their unique perspectives, they provide valuable insights into the more general question of to what extent information processing in reading is universal as opposed to language specific. Moreover, we expect that these initial studies will trigger more basic research on non-alphabetic reading, providing a foundation for useful application.

A model for predicting student performance on introductory programming modules is presented. The model uses attributes identified in a study carried out at four third-level institutions in the Republic of Ireland. Four instruments were used to collect the data and over 25 attributes were examined. A data reduction technique was applied and a logistic regression model using 10-fold stratified cross validation was developed. The model used three attributes: Leaving Certificate Mathematics result (final mathematics examination at second level), number of hours playing computer games while taking the module and programming self-esteem. Prediction success was significant with 80% of students correctly classified. The model also works well on a per-institution level. A discussion on the implications of the model is provided and future work is outlined. (Contains 5 tables.)

In her Behavioral and Brain Sciences target article, Greenfield (1991) proposed that early in a child's development Broca's area may serve the dual function of coordinating object assembly and organizing the production of structured utterances. As development progresses, the upper and lower regions of Broca's area become increasingly specialized for motor coordination and speech, respectively. This commentary presents a connectionist simulation of aspects of this proposal. The results of the simulation confirm the main thrust of Greenfield's argument and suggest that an important impetus for the developmental differentiation in Broca's area may be the increasing complexity of the computational demands made upon it.

This paper describes the use of semantic similarity measures based on distributed representations of words, sentences, and paragraphs (so-called "embeddings") to assess the impact of supra-lexical factors on eye-movement data from early readers of Chinese. In addition, we used a corpus-based measure of surprisal to assess the impact of local word predictability. Eye movement data from 56 Chinese students were collected (a) in the students' 4th grade and (b) one year later while they were in 5th grade. Results indicated that surprisal and some text similarity measures have a significant impact on the moment-to-moment processing of words in reading. The paper presents an easy-to-use set of tools for linking the low-level aspects of fixation durations to a hierarchy of sentence-level and paragraph-level features that can be computed automatically. The study is the first attempt, as far as we are aware, to track the developmental trajectory of these influences in developing readers across a range of reading abilities. The similarity-based measures described here can be used (a) to provide a measure of reader sensitivity to sentence and paragraph cohesion and (b) to assess specific texts for their suitability for readers of different reading ability levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights ways in which standard information processing models of language, and specifically of reading, are deficient. Deficiencies are considered under four headings: (1) theoretical rigour, (2) the interaction of different levels of information during reading; (3) the parallel nature of much of human information processing, and (4) reading comprehension. (DF)

As the number of computational models of eye-movement control in reading increases, so too will their coverage and complexity. This will make their comparison and testing increasingly challenging. We argue here that there is a need to develop a methodology for constructing and evaluating such models, and outline aspects of a possible methodology.

It has recently been found that adult native readers of Thai, an alphabetic scriptio continua language, engage similar oculomotor patterns as readers of languages written with spaces between words; despite the lack of inter-word spaces, first and last characters of a word appear to guide optimal placement of Thai readers' eye movements, just to the left of word-centre. The issue addressed by the research described here is whether eye movements of Thai children also show these oculomotor patterns. Here the effect of first and last character frequency and word frequency on the eye movements of 18 Thai children when silently reading normal unspaced and spaced text was investigated. Linear mixed-effects model analyses of viewing time measures (first fixation duration, single fixation duration, and gaze duration) and of landing site location revealed that Thai children's eye movement patterns were similar to their adult counterparts. Both first character frequency and word frequency played important roles in Thai children's landing sites; children tended to land their eyes further into words, close to the word centre, if the word began with higher frequency first characters, and this effect was facilitated in higher frequency words. Spacing also facilitated more effective use of first character frequency and it also assisted in decreasing children's viewing time. The use of last-character frequency appeared to be a later development, affecting mainly single fixation duration and gaze duration. In general, Thai children use the same oculomotor control mechanisms in reading spaced and unspaced texts as Thai adults, who in turn have similar oculomotor control as readers of spaced texts. Thus, it appears that eye movements in reading converge on the optimal landing site using whatever cues are available to guide such placement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fractal patterns offer one way to represent the rough complexity of the natural world. Whilst they dominate many of our visual experiences in nature, little large-scale perceptual research has been done to explore how we respond aesthetically to these patterns. Previous research (Taylor et al., 2011) suggests that the fractal patterns with mid-range fractal dimensions (FDs) have universal aesthetic appeal. Perceptual and aesthetic responses to visual complexity have been more varied with findings suggesting both linear (Forsythe et al., 2011) and curvilinear (Berlyne, 1970) relationships. Individual differences have been found to account for many of the differences we see in aesthetic responses but some, such as culture, have received little attention within the fractal and complexity research fields. This two-study article aims to test preference responses to FD and visual complexity, using a large cohort (N = 443) of participants from around the world to allow universality claims to be tested. It explores the extent to which age, culture and gender can predict our preferences for fractally complex patterns. Following exploratory analysis that found strong correlations between FD and visual complexity, a series of linear mixed-effect models were implemented to explore if each of the individual variables could predict preference. The first tested a linear complexity model (likelihood of selecting the more complex image from the pair of images) and the second a mid-range FD model (likelihood of selecting an image within mid-range). Results show that individual differences can reliably predict preferences for complexity across culture, gender and age. However, in fitting with current findings the mid-range models show greater consistency in preference not mediated by gender, age or culture. This article supports the established theory that the mid-range fractal patterns appear to be a universal construct underlying preference but also highlights the fragility of universal claims by demonstrating individual differences in preference for the interrelated concept of visual complexity. This highlights a current stalemate in the field of empirical aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model for predicting student performance on introductory programming modules is presented. The model uses attributes identified in a study carried out at four third-level institutions in the Republic of Ireland. Four instruments were used to collect the data and over 25 attributes were examined. A data reduction technique was applied and a logistic regression model using 10-fold stratified cross validation was developed. The model used three attributes: Leaving Certificate Mathematics result (final mathematics examination at second level), number of hours playing computer games while taking the module and programming self-esteem. Prediction success was significant with 80% of students correctly classified. The model also works well on a per-institution level. A discussion on the implications of the model is provided and future work is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Borehole-wall imaging is currently the most reliable means of mapping discontinuities within boreholes. As these imaging techniques are expensive and thus not always included in a logging run, a method of predicting fracture frequency directly from traditional logging tool responses would be very useful and cost effective. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) show great potential in this area. ANNs are computational systems that attempt to mimic natural biological neural networks. They have the ability to recognize patterns and develop their own generalizations about a given data set. Neural networks are trained on data sets for which the solution is known and tested on data not previously seen in order to validate the network result. We show that artificial neural networks, due to their pattern recognition capabilities, are able to assess the signal strength of fracture-related heterogeneity in a borehole log and thus fracture frequency within a borehole. A combination of wireline logs (neutron porosity, bulk density, P-sonic, S-sonic, deep resistivity and shallow resistivity) were used as input parameters to the ANN. Fracture frequency calculated from borehole televiewer data was used as the single output parameter. The ANN was trained using a back-propagation algorithm with a momentum learning function. In addition to fracture frequency within a single borehole, an ANN trained on a subset of boreholes in an area could be used for prediction over the entire set of boreholes, thus allowing the lateral correlation of fracture zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once an eye tracking experiment is complete, the task to review, clean and analyse the collected data begins. A researcher, depending on the hardware used to perform the experiment, may use a variety of tools to take their collected data and transform it into a working data set from which results relating to their experimental hypotheses can be obtained. This process can be time-consuming and complicated. EMDAS aims to improve how this process is carried out by leveraging the power of cloud computing. The platform allows data to be ingested, cleaned, analysed, transformed and allows results from the data to be obtained to either support or refute whatever experimental objective had been undertaken. Data from experiments is uploaded to the cloud-based platform, taking advantage of robust and highly available cloud storage services. Transformation of data facilitated using on-demand functions, storing the transformed artefact for analysis. Collected data is visualised within the browser, and can be cleaned in a manual or automated fashion. Areas of interest around words read by subjects are automatically determined using image recognition API's and presented alongside collected eye movement data. For data analysis, the platform provides a stable, browser-based, environment for analysis via platform containerisation technologies. Common statistical software is provided for data analysis. Results obtained from the statistical analysis can be stored securely using version control and downloaded for further use. By leveraging cloud computing, the platform provides a location for all elements of data analysis of an experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examples from Chinese, Thai, and Finnish illustrate why researchers cannot always be confident about the precise nature of the word unit. Understanding ambiguities regarding where a word begins and ends, and how to model word recognition when many derivations of a word are possible, is essential for universal theories of reading applied to both developing and expert readers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]