294 Int. J. Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, Vol. 13, No.

4, 2014

Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye

gaze using eye tracker

Chandan Singh
Department of Computer Science,
Mangalayatan University Aligarh,
Beswan, Aligarh 202145, India
Email: chandan.hbti@gmail.com

Dhananjay Yadav* and Jinho Lee

School of Mechanical Engineering,
Yonsei University,
Seoul 120 749, South Korea
Email: dhananjayadav@gmail.com
Email: jinholee@yonsei.ac.kr
*Corresponding author

Abstract: This paper concentrates on measuring comprehension ability of a

reader by calculating reader ranking based on correct answer lines recorded by
eye gaze tracker (mounted on reader’s eye) and number of correct answers
given by reader. Time is measured to find the answer line (page time T1) and
time spent on the answer line (score time T2). The ratio (T2/T1) of both these
time parameters plays vital role in evaluation of rank of reader. Score is
calculated only if reader reads the answer line/s and after that gives the correct
answer otherwise the score will be zero for same question. Finally, the reader
gets score and rank among the existing readers on the basis of time ratio and
correctness of answers.

Keywords: reader comprehension; eye gaze; eye tracker; monitoring eye gaze.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Singh, C., Yadav, D. and
Lee, J. (2014) ‘Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze using
eye tracker’, Int. J. Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, Vol. 13,
No. 4, pp.294–307.

Biographical notes: Chandan Singh is an Assistant Professor in the

Department of Computer Science, Mangalayatan University Aligarh, India.
His research focus is on the reader comprehension; eye gaze; eye tracker;
monitoring eye gaze.

Dhananjay Yadav is a Post-Doctoral Research Scientist in the School of

Mechanical Engineering, Yonsei University, South Korea. He received his
PhD from Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Roorkee, India in 2013. His primary research interest is hydrodynamic and
hydromagnetic stability; computational fluid dynamics, reader comprehension;
monitoring eye gaze.

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 295

Jinho Lee is presently holding the post of Professor, School of Mechanical

Engineering, Yonsei University, South Korea. He received his BS and MS in
Mechanical Engineering from Yonsei University South Korea in 1974 and
1976, respectively and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western
Reserve University, USA in 1982. He has more than 30 years of teaching
and research experience. He has guided five students for PhD. His about
100 research articles in various international journals and conferences
were published. His primary research interest includes computational fluid
dynamics; heat and mass transfer; heat pump; hydrodynamic and
hydromagnetic stability.

1 Introduction

Eye tracking is a method to track the movement of the eyes to understand where the
viewer is looking and to measure the time duration, i.e., fixation. Eye movements are
monitored for eye gaze position, saccade, fixation and fixation durations. Fixation is the
time duration for processing a particular image by fovea. Saccade is the time duration
between two fixations (Calvi et al., 2008).
In the field of human computer interaction, the growth of eye tracking system has
increased exponentially, it is used in area like image and visual processing, human
psychology, human reading behaviour and graphics display system, where fixation and
saccade are vital for eye tracking. Eye tracking methodologies are used in many broad
disciplines, for example: industrial engineering, psychology, marketing/advertising,
neuroscience and computer science. A number of researches have been done on text
document and image/data by using eye tracker. In some research, user emphasis is
tracked by using eye tracker. These data are used for finding the frequently accessed
image, text and document. These researches help to place content of interest on the web.
Thus, when a user concentrates on some text on a computer or web, in this process eye
gaze provides much information about his reading pattern such as on which words, image
user spent more time; X and Y coordinate of words, image on the screen, fixation duration
given to the words, image by the user, speed and acceleration of eye gaze (Rayner, 1998;
Singh and Yadav, 2014).
Mosconi et al. (2008) developed an eye gaze-based system. It monitors reader’s
behaviour when they read online newspaper, i.e., where user pays more attention. Some
user are interested in business news, some other are interested in sports news, where as
some user interested in political news, etc. Xu et al. (2009) proposed a method in which it
uses algorithm during reading a document to predict the time spent on every word in
that document by using semantic analysis. They also reported on an exploratory study
analysing preferred reading regions on a monitor using eye tracking. They show that
users have individually preferred reading regions, varying in location on the screen and in
size. Furthermore, they explore how scrolling interactions and mouse movements are
correlated with position and size of the individually preferred reading regions.
People with severe disabilities, for example their movement of muscles is affected,
communicate only by controlling the eyes movement. Several researches are going on to
develop different applications of eye gaze for these people; such one application is eye
typing (Majaranta and Raiha, 2002). In eye typing, some type of feedback is required
296 C. Singh et al.

to know a key is focused/selected, which impacts typing speed, error rate and the user’s
need to switch his gaze between the on-screen keyboard and the typed text field
(Majaranta et al., 2004). Novel eye gaze tracking techniques under natural head
movement was analysed by Zhu and Qiang (2007).
One of the challenging problems to those people, who are working on human
computer interface, is to develop improved and user friendly interface between computer
and a human. This problem motivates me to develop an efficient and enjoyable human–
computer interaction based on eye gaze method. Many modules which are partially
related to the “reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze using eye tracker”
have been developed but these are very limited. So, there may be some enhancement and
integration over these modules. The recent developments in the field of artificial
intelligence enable us to get information regarding the significance of words occurrence
in a corpus. In this research work, the reading behaviour of the reader will be identified
by tracking his eye movements and according by his comprehension efficiency rank
will be evaluated and provided to him. There are two parameters to measure the
comprehension efficiency of reader. The first parameter is correctness of answers of
reader, i.e., number of correct answers given by the reader and the second parameter is
time spent by the reader on answer lines/passage (testing page). This concept can be
implemented in class room teaching to monitor the behaviour of students. By monitoring
eye gaze of a student, system can generate a summary. This summary includes which
section students are interested in and where the students are facing problems to
understand the concept. This concept can be extended in e-learning.

2 Features of reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze using

eye tracker

The flow chart of the present analysis is shown in Figure 1. User is important for any
application software. User decides how software is running and decides the efficiency of
software. Finally user gives the preference according to his demand. So ranking system is
always there for software depends on user requirement. This software application
provides rank to the user on basis of their learning rate in respect of time taken
by the user in reading comprehension. Ranking system is applied in respect of domain.
This application software clusters the user not only in respect of domain but also take
care of level of the user, i.e., beginner, intermediate or professional with the following
features:
• this application program reads a text file for selected domain and level of the user
• uploaded file in memory is converted into text image format, i.e., creation of virtual
page and create an index for each word
• after successful creation and transfer of x, y coordinates by host PC, application
software utilises the received data from host PC in mapping between user eye gaze
and x and y coordinates of virtual page
• successful mapping returns an index of word which helps to calculate the time on
page and time on answer line
 Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 297

• the time on page and time on answer line are stored to calculate the score and rank of
the user in respective domain
• this application uses four functional key UP for next page, DOWN for Previous
Page, PgUp for Question Page and PgDn for Answer Page.

Figure 1 Flow chart

2.1 Training page for new reader

Figure 2 shows the training page for new reader. The main purpose of training page is to
be familiar to new user with eye tracker system. It will help new reader how the system
is working, i.e., when reader see computer screen there is exact mapping between reader
and computer screen is occurring or not. The main advantage of training page is
reader will familiar with gaze curser, which moves along with eye gaze of the reader.
Reader can judge the position of gaze curser is matching with the word selected by
reader’s eye gaze, if not user exits from the program.
298 C. Singh et al.

Figure 2 Training page (see online version for colours)

2.2 Reader information page

Reader information page, as shown in Figure 3, contain essential information for this
application program. To identify reader fields, following fields are required: Name,
Enrolment Number, Age and Class/level. Name and enrolment number are required for to
save and access the score. Reader rank displays along with the name score. Age and class
are used to cluster the user rank. Age help to access data between minimum and
maximum (say 18–35) age from score cluster, i.e., it helps to display rank between age
group. Class/level of reader is another parameter for clustering for reader, i.e., beginner,
intermediate and professional. Passage length and number of questions varies for
beginner, intermediate and professional, respectively.

Figure 3 Reader information page (see online version for colours)

2.3 Testing page

Passage comprehension is required to check learning ability of reader. In passage there
are some important lines which decide the reader attention toward the passage. These
lines are used to check learning rate and reading effectiveness.
 Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 299

Testing page is extremely important module of this project and shown in Figure 4.
Testing page is basically a combination of words and its position, i.e., words are stored
with its X, Y coordinates. Testing page contains the information regarding the reader
domain subject. In testing page, there are some useful lines where reader is more
emphasised.

Figure 4 Testing page (see online version for colours)

2.4 Question page

Reader read testing page effectively and attentively, turns on the question page and tries
to make confidence of comprehension. Comprehension is measured by number of correct
answer and correct lines read by the user.
Question page is designed to check the comprehension ability of reader as given in
Figure 5. Question page is displayed before giving the answer to monitor the line read
by the reader. It is a combination of word and its position, i.e., a text page in form of
text-image format. Questions are objective types, after reading question reader turns on
current test page.

Figure 5 Question page (see online version for colours)

2.5 Answer page

Answer page is image-text documents, i.e., each word are stored with its starting pixel
value and ending pixel value as shown in Figure 6. After reading question page followed
300 C. Singh et al.

by the test page, reader turns on answer page. Reader reads the option and gives the
option of the question. Option should be valid, without giving valid option user cannot
move to test page. Reader put the valid answer and moved on current test page.

Figure 6 Answer page (see online version for colours)

2.6 Score calculation

Time is a vital parameter of score calculation; reader taking more time to answer the
question is less efficient reader, otherwise reader is more efficient. Let us say T1i is the
time spent by the reader on answer line and T2i is the time spent by the reader on passage
(testing page). For maximum score and good rank, the ratio of T1i and T2i should be high.
Time on passage (testing page) excluded on answer line, i.e., (T2i − T1i ) should be
minimum for maximum score. If a reader takes more time to reach answer line, it is not
good in comprehension. The time ratio (T2i − T1i ) / T2i should minimum for maximising
score. After calculation of both ratios, i.e., T1i / T2i and (T2i − T1i ) / T2i , the score is
measured by subtraction of them. Result of subtraction may tend to negative (less than 1),
to ignore this result is added by one. After simplification, this expression gives the result
2(T1i / T2i ), this ratio is used to calculate the questionwise score.
N
T i T i − T i 
Score = ∑1 +  1i − 2 i 1 
i =1  T2 T2 
N
Ti
Score = ∑ 2 1i
i =1 T2
Normalised score = Score × 100
Here T1i is the time spent by the reader on answer lines, T2i is the total time spent by the
reader on testing page after reading question and N is the total number of questions.

2.7 Algorithms
Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 301
302 C. Singh et al.
 Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 303

3 Result and analysis

This application is developed in C++ with SDL, EyeLink libraries in Microsoft Windows
environment. EyeLink monitors eye movement and accordingly generates data like
location where eye is looking, time duration for which it is looking, speed, acceleration
and saccades. All of the data is stored in EDF (EyeLink Data File). SDL stands for
Simple DirectMedia Layer. This has been used for keyboard event handling and text
display. All experimentation is realised on Windows 7 Operating System on computer
with processor Intel Core 2 Duo and 2 GB RAM.
Current research work provides reader rankings after reader is done with reading the
passage and answering the related questions. Figure 7 represents a demonstration of how
reader scores on different question. Score is calculated on the basis of time spent by the
user on testing page T2 and answer line T1.

Figure 7 Question wise score of reader (see online version for colours)

Figure 8 represents a demonstration of how different users are ranked accordingly.

It shows reader name, score and their respective rank.
The user scores obtained in Figure 8 are plotted in Figure 9 in terms of histogram
which shows casing a comparison of scores of all readers. X-axis represents the reader
number and Y-axis represents their score. Figure 9 clearly shows the variation of scores
of different users.
304 C. Singh et al.

Figure 8 Reader rank and score (see online version for colours)

Figure 9 Readers score histogram

Figure 10 shows the variation of score on the basis of time ratio, i.e., time spent by the
reader on original passage vs. time spent on the exact answer line in the passage.
X-axis represents number of questions and Y-axis represents score. Black bars represent
score without taking time ratio into consideration, whereas grey bars show result by
multiplying this time ratio by actual marks of the question. From this figure, we observed
that when time ratio is considered, the scores of all the correct answers vary with the
time taken by answer the question correctly while, when time ratio is not considered,
the scores of all the correct answers are the same (equal to 100).
 Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 305

Figure 10 Score variation with time

Figure 11 analyses scores of a particular user for same passage on repetition. X-axis
represents number of questions and Y-axis represents score for each question. Black bars
stand for scores on first attempt, grey bars show scores for same questions in second
attempt for the same passage. When a reader reattempts the questions, his score increases
in most of the questions and also decreases in some of the questions, this is clearly shown
by grey bars. This is happenning due to rememberance of aproximate answer lines of
respective questions by reader, due to this time ratio has increased for most of the
questions and decreased for other questions.

Figure 11 Score variation of single reader first attempt vs second attempt

Figure 12 shows score variation on second attempt but for different users on the same
passage. X-axis shows number of users and Y-axis shows their score. Black bar represents
each users score on first attempt and grey bar shows their score on second attempt.
306 C. Singh et al.

Most of the reader’s scores increased in their second attempt. However, for a few readers,
their scores remained constant, or even decreased in their second attempt. Figure 13
represents the scores of different users in terms of number of question answered
accurately. X-axis represents number of users and Y-axis is for their number of correct
answers.

Figure 12 Score variation of readers first attempt vs second attempt

Figure 13 No of correct answer of different readers

4 Conclusions

This paper presents a novel idea to rank the comprehension ability of a reader. This
approach considers the time spent in identifying the location of the correct answer for a
 Reader comprehension ranking by monitoring eye gaze 307

question presented to him from the comprehension corpus. However, the system as of
now is static in terms of learning. The questions and their answers for each passage have
to be pre-defined manually by the developer. For the comprehension database to be large,
this requires a lot of work and time. This concept can be implemented in class room
teaching to monitor the behaviour of students. By monitoring eye gaze of a student,
system can generate a summary of his comprehension of the subject.

Acknowledgements

The authors are sincerely admired of institutes “IIIT Allahabad India and Yonsei
University South Korea”, for providing an excellent platform for experiments. Also,
authors would like to thank Prof. R.C. Tripathi, IIIT Allahabad, India for their technical
helps without whom it would never have been possible to accomplish this research work.
The authors are also grateful to all the reviewers for their lucid comments which have
served to greatly improve the status of the present paper.

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