Test-Retest Reliability of Eye Tracking in the Visual World Paradigm for the Study of Real-Time Spoken Word Recognition

Purpose: Researchers have begun to use eye tracking in the visual world paradigm (VWP) to study clinical differences in language processing, but the reliability of such laboratory tests has rarely been assessed. In this article, the authors assess test-retest reliability of the VWP for spoken word recognition. Methods: Participants performed an auditory VWP task in repeated sessions and a visual-only VWP task in a third session. The authors performed correlation and regression analyses on several parameters to determine which reflect reliable behavior and which are predictive of behavior in later sessions. Results: Results showed that the fixation parameters most closely related to timing and degree of fixations were moderately-to-strongly correlated across days, whereas the parameters related to rate of increase or decrease of fixations to particular items were less strongly correlated. Moreover, when including factors derived from the visual-only task, the performance of the regression model was at least moderately correlated with Day 2 performance on all parameters (R > .30). Conclusion: The VWP is stable enough (with some caveats) to serve as an individual measure. These findings suggest guidelines for future use of the paradigm and for areas of improvement in both methodology and analysis.