Analysing data from the psycholinguistic visual-world paradigm: Comparison of different analysis methods

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss key characteristics and typical experimental designs of the visual-world paradigm and compare different methods of analysing eye-movement data. We discuss the nature of the eye-movement data from a visual-world study and provide data analysis tutorials on ANOVA, t-tests, linear mixed-effects model, growth curve analysis, cluster-based permutation analysis, bootstrapped differences of timeseries, generalised additive modelling, and divergence point analysis to enable psycholinguists to apply each analytical method to their own data. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of each method and offer recommendations about how to select an appropriate method depending on the research question and the experimental design.