Eye-tracking in vocabulary research: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

Vocabulary researchers are increasingly making use of the eye-tracking method to investigate topics that were traditionally examined using offline tests. Eye-tracking provides a direct measure of processing effort and attention allocation to lexical items. Previous research has provided useful insights about how different types of lexical items are processed in context and of the factors that affect processing patterns. More recent research has also contributed to our understanding of how unknown lexical items are processed in different learning conditions and its relation to learning gains. While eye-tracking has clearly supported researchers in gaining a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of vocabulary processing and learning, and has become a crucial tool in vocabulary research, currently there are no methodological discussions of eye-tracking with a particular focus on vocabulary. This special issue aims at addressing this gap and provides a detailed discussion of the uses and applications of eye-tracking in vocabulary research. This introduction to the special issue provides a brief review of current topics in eye-tracking based vocabulary research, identifying the main gaps that the special issue sets to answer, and introduces the different contributions of the special issue. The collection of papers that constitute this special issue aims at supporting researchers in conducting eye-tracking studies on lexical processing and learning and thus will help to move the field forward.