Psychophysiological Markers of Epistemic Evaluation: Evidence from Eye Tracking in Reading Familiar and Unfamiliar Words

The article focuses on identifying specific eye movement parameters during reading unfamiliar words to study the formation of epistemic evaluation. The sample consisted of 40 students. 240 eye-tracking records were registered while the participants were reading 6 texts in Russian. The study revealed that the speed of saccades decreased, and the duration of fixations increased while reading an unknown word. Eye movements at first encounter of a new term may be an indicator of epistemic evaluation formation.