Mind-wandering or loss of focus is a frequently occurring experience for many learners and negatively impacts learning outcomes. While in a classroom setting, a skilled teacher may be able to react to students’ loss of focus, in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) no such intervention is possible (yet). Previous studies suggest a strong relationship between learners’ mind-wandering and their ga...

In this paper we report results of two eye-tracking experiments investigating on-line processing of the focus-sensitive expression ‘only’. The experiments described address two sets of questions having to do with the role of contextual information in restricting focus alternatives. First, there is the question of whether the preceding discourse context influences the referential domain with res...

The DreamThrower is a novel technology that explores virtually creating, throwing and catching dreams. It detects users’ dream state by measuring rapid eye movement (REM). Once the dream state is detected, sound and light stimuli is played to alter the dream. Users report on their dream, and they can send the stimuli that they have used to another person via an on-line website. A working protot...

Users have clear expectations of where web objects are located on a web page. Studies conducted with manipulated, fictitious websites showed that web objects placed according to user expectations are found faster and remembered more easily. Whether this is also true for existing websites has not yet been examined. The present study investigates the relation between location typicality and effic...

We analyze pedestrian behavior in a large shopping mall through observations using a laser range finder (LRF) and video cameras. The observed movements are classified into three categories, ‘going straight,’‘finding the way,’ and ‘walking around,’ based on each persons’ walking speed, variability of trajectory, stopping ratio, and head motions. Pedestrian behavior reflects the individual’s inte...

This article describes research investigating the on-line processing of language in unscripted conversational settings. In particular, we focus on the process of formulating and interpreting definite referring expressions. Within this domain we present results of two eye-tracking experiments addressing the problem of how speakers interrogate the referential domain in preparation to speak, how t...