Abstract Eye tracking research has been instrumental in deepening our understanding of the reading process. Growing evidence links individual differences in eye movement patterns to cognitive abilities, but these associations remain underexplored in developing readers. This study examined the feasibility of implementing large-scale eye tracking in a population-based sample of developing readers, and examined the associations between eye movement patterns, reading skill, and cognitive and motor components. Eye movement data were obtained from 713 Dutch pre-adolescents (mean age: 9.8 years), with other assessments including word reading, motor control, phonological short-term memory, non-verbal intelligence, and vocabulary knowledge. Carefully addressing demographic effects, results from linear regression analyses revealed subtle but distinct associations between individual differences in cognitive and motor skills and temporal and spatial eye movement measures. Specifically, vocabulary was negatively related to fixation duration, whereas better motor control was associated with less fixations and regressions. Findings demonstrate that large-scale eye tracking is feasible, and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the link between eye movements and reading-related skills. Given the subtle nature of the effects, the utility of eye tracking within the general population requires careful examination.
Louwen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.