Influence of Reading Speed on Pupil Size as a Measure of Perceived Relevance

Depending on the task or the environment, we read texts at different speeds. Recently, a substantial amount of literature has risen in the field of predicting relevance of text documents through eye-derived metrics to improve personalization of information retrieval systems. Nevertheless, no academic work has yet addressed the possibility of such measures behaving differently when reading at different speeds. This study focuses on pupil size as a measure of perceived relevance, and analyses its dependence on reading speed. Our results are followed by a discussion around the need of taking into account reading speed when using eye-derived measures for implicit relevance feedback.

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