SWIFT: A Dynamical Model of Saccade Generation During Reading.

TLDR

Mathematical models are key tools for understanding eye movement control during reading. The authors sought to develop SWIFT to test spatially distributed processing and provide a general mechanism for all eye movements observed in reading experiments, and they present an advanced version that integrates oculomotor and word‑recognition effects. The advanced SWIFT model incorporates oculomotor dynamics and word‑recognition effects, introduces new parameter‑estimation procedures, and includes a mathematical analysis of its dynamics and the transition from parallel to serial processing.

Abstract

Mathematical models have become an important tool for understanding the control of eye movements during reading. Main goals of the development of the SWIFT model (R. Engbert, A. Longtin, & R. Kliegl, 2002) were to investigate the possibility of spatially distributed processing and to implement a general mechanism for all types of eye movements observed in reading experiments. The authors present an advanced version of SWIFT that integrates properties of the oculomotor system and effects of word recognition to explain many of the experimental phenomena faced in reading research. They propose new procedures for the estimation of model parameters and for the test of the model's performance. They also present a mathematical analysis of the dynamics of the SWIFT model. Finally, within this framework, they present an analysis of the transition from parallel to serial processing.