Toward unobtrusive measurement of reading comprehension using low-cost EEG

Assessment of reading comprehension can be costly and obtrusive. In this paper, we use inexpensive EEG to detect reading comprehension of readers in a school environment. We use EEG signals to produce above-chance predictors of student performance on end-of-sentence cloze questions. We also attempt (unsuccessfully) to distinguish among student mental states evoked by distracters that violate either syntactic, semantic, or contextual constraints. In total, this work investigates the practicality of classroom use of inexpensive EEG devices as an unobtrusive measure of reading comprehension.