Ondřej Fišer: The secret language of birds – communication we are only beginning to understand
What do birds actually say to each other? And how complex can their world of sounds be? This lecture will show that bird communication is much more than just singing in the treetops. We will look at how “bird radio” works, spreading information across
the landscape. We will learn about song signatures, voice imitation, communication within flocks, and “bird sentence structure.” We will show how these signals are generated in the bird brain and what their study tells us about the evolution of communication
in general. The lecture is based on current research in bird cognition and bioacoustics and shows birds not as a backdrop to our cities and forests, but as animals with a remarkably sophisticated communication system that we are only beginning to understand.
Diane Mézière: Using Eye-Tracking to Study Reading Comprehension Processes
Reading is one of the most complex cognitive tasks that we engage in on a daily basis, as it necessitates a large network of processes from low-level occulo-motor processes to higher-level language comprehension processes. Eye-tracking is a commonly-used method to investigate these processes as eye-movement behaviour can be used to investigate both low-level word identification processes and higher-level comprehension processes such as inference making. In this talk, I give an overview of how eye-tracking can and has been used to study language comprehension processes at the word, sentence, and discourse levels. This talk is intended as a primer for the following talks on “Predicting Reading Comprehension from Eye Movements” and “Mind-Wandering and Immersion During Reading“.
Diane Mézière: Measures of Reading Comprehension and their Validity
Reading comprehension is one of the most complex cognitive tasks that we engage in on a daily basis, as it relies on a complex network of cognitive processes ranging from word identification to higher-level language comprehension processes (e.g., making inferences), as well as executive functions such as memory and attention. Given this complexity, it is hardly surprising that measuring reading comprehension is also a complex task. Today, there is no standard in how reading comprehension is measured, and the validity of standard reading comprehension assessment has been brought into question. In this talk, I will discuss definitions of reading comprehension, and the way it is measured in schools, clinics, and research. The validity and reliability of reading comprehension assessments will also be discussed.
Diane Mézière: Eye Movements as Indicators of Reading Comprehension Skills
The ability to understand written text is an essential skill that we use everyday and that has a critical impact on further academic success as well as daily functioning (e.g., understanding health information). However, current measures of reading comprehension lack validity, which has important implication for their use in schools and clinical settings. In light of this, researchers have started to investigate other methods of measuring reading comprehension ability in children and adults. In my work, I have examined whether eye-movement behaviour can provide an ecologically-valid and reliable method of measuring reading comprehension skills. In this talk, I will present research on the predictive relationship between eye movements and reading comprehension outcomes and discuss the feasibility of developing a reading comprehension assessment based on eye movements during reading.
Diane Mézière: Mind-Wandering and Immersion During Reading/Listening to Literary Texts
While reading (or listening ) to text, readers experience a variety of different thought patterns that may or may not be related to the contents of the text. To date, researchers have primarily focused on one such pattern: mind-wandering. Mind-wandering is typically defined as instances during which the reader’s attention is dissociated from the text content (e.g., thinking about what they’re gonna have for dinner later). Another pattern is a feeling of being “transported” into the story world (e.g., feeling like you are right there with the characters as the story unfolds). This phenomenon called immersion or transportation is characterized by attention focused on the contents of the text. In this talk, I will report on recent research on the type of thoughts that readers experience while reading/listening to a literary text and how these are reflected in their eye movements.