Variations in Eye-Gaze Behaviors Evident When Five Adults With Aphasia-Based Alexia Read Multisentence Passages

The problems that people with aphasia encounter when reading passages are poorly understood. This study's purpose was in-depth examination of eye-gaze behaviors exhibited by five people with aphasia-based alexia.

Five adults with aphasia-based alexia and five neurotypical adults (NAs) read paragraphs while having their eye movements recorded. Acquired data included descriptive characterization of overall eye-gaze behaviors and determination of the (a) percent of fixated words, (b) average fixation duration, (c) average initial and total summed fixation durations of processing attempts on individual words, and (d) effects of word length and frequency on fixation durations. Careful examination of these data allowed examination of consistencies and discrepancies among people with aphasia and supported speculation about underlying deficits.

Case participants exhibited unique fixation behaviors in comparison to one another and to neurotypical adults. Case participants' total reading time, percent of fixated words, average fixation duration, and average initial and total summed fixation durations on passage words exceeded those of neurotypical adults. Four of five exhibited positive word length and negative word frequency correlations with fixation durations.

People with aphasia display eye-gaze behaviors unique to them and differing from those of NAs when reading texts. Better understanding of the connection between specific eye-gaze behaviors and problems decoding words, linking them with lexical-semantic information, and constructing meaning from written content is necessary to further progress in developing effective assessment tools and treatments.