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Updated: Jul 3, 2026
Eye-tracking to Distinguish Comprehension-based and Oculomotor-based Regressive Eye Movements During Reading
Published on: October 18, 2018
Visual guidance patterns and comprehension mechanisms in children's nonlinear picture book reading: an eye-tracking
Haoyu Sun1, Xi Wang1, Huangjia Chen1
1Graduate School of Techno Design, Kookmin University, Seongbuk-Gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Background:
Nonlinear narrative picture books represent an emerging literacy form in children's literature, yet their cognitive processing mechanisms remain understudied. This study investigated visual guidance patterns and comprehension mechanisms in 6-7-year-old children reading nonlinear narrative picture books using eye-tracking technology.
Methods:
Sixty-four children (72-95 months) read two Chinese nonlinear narrative picture books while their eye movements were recorded using Tobii Pro Spectrum (1,200 Hz). Four eye-tracking metrics were analyzed: fixation duration, path consistency index, cross-AOI scanning frequency, and image-first reading proportion. Comprehension was assessed through structured interviews evaluating factual understanding, inference, global coherence, and narrative structure understanding.
Results:
Children exhibited a predominant "image-first" pattern, with 58.6% of total fixation time on images versus 26.3% on text. However, mean fixation duration was longer for text (348.6 ms) than images (256.2 ms), indicating deeper text processing. Path consistency (r = 0.48, p < 0.001) and cross-AOI scanning (r = 0.45, p < 0.001) positively correlated with age. Eye movement measures explained an additional 26.3% variance in comprehension beyond baseline ability, with cross-AOI scanning as the strongest predictor (β = 0.45, p < 0.001). Cluster analysis identified three reader types: integrative readers achieved highest comprehension (M = 21.8), followed by text-dominant (M = 18.7) and image-dominant readers (M = 16.2).
Conclusion:
Findings extend text-image integration models to nonlinear contexts, supporting age-adaptive design principles and differentiated reading instruction strategies for children's picture book reading.
