The traveling glasses

Procuring eye-tracking glasses for linguistics research

Hi! We are researchers in different fields of linguistics. We are all part of the MultiplEYE project.

MultiplEYE is a research network that aims to collect eye-tracking data from participants reading text, so that we can analyze the language processing in many languages. The name «MultiplEYE» is a wordplay combining «multilingualism» or «multiple languages» with «eye» from «eye-tracking».

The linguistic diversity across our planet is one of the most crucial assets of the human race. However, not every research institution in every country has the means to buy an eye-tracking device. This excludes them from participating in the data collection and prevents them from studying reading behavior in their language.

Why is eye-tracking while reading especially interesting for our project? As you read these words, an eye-tracker could follow your eye’s movements over the text. This provides information about how long you spend looking at a text, or more specifically, how long you focused on each word, which words you skipped, which words you dwelled on, and whether you had to go back and re-read parts of the text to understand it better.

Enabling an eye-tracking data collection in as many languages as possible

With the funding collected through this project, we will buy eye-tracking glasses that can be shipped to countries where no equipment is available. This will enable all willing researchers to participate in our large-scale multi-lingual eye-tracking experiment. The collected data will benefit their own research and the global research community in all subfields of linguistics, including psycholinguistics, comparative linguistics, and natural language processing for artificial intelligence.

Funding for eye-tracking glasses and shipping costs

We will use the funds from this campaign to acquire a portable PupilLabs eye-tracking device (model: Neon). We will lend this device to research labs in countries where no equipment is available. The crowd-funding will also cover the shipping costs.

For example, Alba and Evis, researchers from Albania, have already prepared the reading experiment in their language, but cannot participate due to the lack of an eye-tracker. This project will enable collaborators from the whole world to participate in the MultiplEYE research experiment.

In our current network, the laboratories that lack an eye-tracking device are located in Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, and Latvia, which represent under-resourced languages in the field of eye-tracking.