The use of eye movement corpora in vocabulary research

Abstract

Analysis of existing datasets of eye movements in reading is a valuable tool for vocabulary research because it allows researchers to examine word recognition in an authentic context. We argue that such secondary analysis is an important addition to new experimental studies and existing mega-studies because it examines word recognition in real text rather than in crammed conditions or in isolation. Corpora in which participants read long texts are particularly interesting because they provide rich material that can be better controlled for confounding variables, but a collection of small data sets can also be interesting because it contains more variation than is typically possible in a single study. We discuss the considerations to take into account when dealing with eye movement data in reading and urge colleagues to make their eye movement data available in the spirit of open science so that a larger database can be built more quickly.