Saccadic Bias and Increased Bilateralization in Bidirectional Arabic-English Readers

Abstract

The visual system and attention network are largely interconnected. Reading as a task is one way in which this connection manifests, driven by language perception. This study aimed to extend and replicate previous research on how script directionality influences the visual attention network by performing three different eye tracking experiments on a population of (left-to-right) English readers and bidirectional (left-to-right and right-to-left) Arabic-English readers. Participants performed natural reading tasks in English and Arabic, in addition to a reversed-English reading task while being eye-tracked. Participants also took part in a behavioral experiment testing the robustness of their visual field. Ultimately what this study found was that bidirectional Arabic-English readers tend to centrally fixate, as previous literature proposed. Unidirectional English readers tend to significantly shift away from central fixation, in both the left and right directions. However, both groups have an inherent shift toward central fixation that occurs during continuous reading, with the effect being more apparent in bidirectional Arabic-English readers. Supplemental qualitative pRF mapping from the left visual word form area was also performed on a small subset of participants.