Eye tracking based dyslexia detection using a holistic approach

Sci Rep. 2021 Aug 3;11(1):15687. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-95275-1.

Abstract

A new detection method for cognitive impairments is presented utilizing an eye tracking signals in a text reading test. This research enhances published articles that extract combination of various features. It does so by processing entire eye-tracking records either in time or frequency whereas applying only basic signal pre-processing. Such signals were classified as a whole by Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) that hierarchically extract substantial features scatter either in time or frequency and nonlinearly binds them using machine learning to minimize a detection error. In the experiments we used a 100 fold cross validation and a dataset containing signals of 185 subjects (88 subjects with low risk and 97 subjects with high risk of dyslexia). In a series of experiments it was found that magnitude spectrum based representation of time interpolated eye-tracking signals recorded the best results, i.e. an average accuracy of 96.6% was reached in comparison to 95.6% that is the best published result on the same database. These findings suggest that a holistic approach involving small but complex enough CNNs applied to properly pre-process and expressed signals provides even better results than a combination of meticulously selected well-known features.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Data Analysis
  • Dyslexia / diagnosis*
  • Eye Movements*
  • Eye-Tracking Technology*
  • Humans
  • Machine Learning
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • Reading