Neuro-cognitive mechanisms of goal-oriented reading

Reading in everyday life is a context-sensitive and goal-sensitive process. Reading a textbook for an exam is very different from reading your favourite novel. Study-focused reading is slower and involves re-reading passages multiple times, reflecting greater goal-driven expenditure of cognitive resources and is particularly difficult for those with poor reading skills.

Yet the neuro-cognitive mechanisms allowing individuals to adapt and optimise reading strategies for specific goals are poorly understood for two key reasons: (a) the majority of reading research is not based on naturalistic reading in diverse contexts, and (b) there is a lack of advanced analytical tools able to link neural-level natural text analysis to individuals' eye-gaze behaviours and reading skills. The current project aims to address both issues and, in doing so, it establishes a neurobiologically-grounded account of goal-oriented reading.

Apart from theoretical and methodological advances, this will open new doors for translational work around learning support for neurodiverse populations that struggle to adjust to demanding study-focused reading and requiring learning support (dyslexia, autism).

This project will explore how one's goals influence neural and behavioural markers of reading by using a novel cross-disciplinary analysis pipeline - the key methodological advance of this project. The pipeline will be developed in two stages. In Stage 1, we will use computational linguistics models to characterise text passages at multiple linguistic levels relevant for human reading (by obtaining word-level and sentences-level estimates of complexity).

In Stage 2, we will carry out combined EEG and eye-tracking experiments with participants reading text passages under different goal instructions (study vs. entertainment). Using multivariate analysis and information theory approaches, we will combine Stage1 computational measures with Stage 2 EEG and eye-tracking data. This will allow us to generate analytical tools with which we can uncover neurocognitive mechanisms supporting flexible reading strategies and understand their impact on reading skills.