Using eye tracking to investigate what native Chinese speakers notice about linguistic landscape images

TL;DR

This study employs eye tracking to analyze how native Chinese speakers visually engage with linguistic landscape images, revealing higher fixation metrics due to the dense information content.

Contribution

It introduces the novel application of eye tracking technology to linguistic landscape research, highlighting fixation differences linked to information density.

Findings

Native Chinese speakers fixate more on linguistic landscapes.

Fixation time and frequency are higher for linguistic landscapes.

Higher information density influences visual attention.

Abstract

Linguistic landscape is an important field in sociolinguistic research. Eye tracking technology is a common technology in psychological research. There are few cases of using eye movement to study linguistic landscape. This paper uses eye tracking technology to study the actual fixation of the linguistic landscape and finds that in the two dimensions of fixation time and fixation times, the fixation of native Chinese speakers to the linguistic landscape is higher than that of the general landscape. This paper argues that this phenomenon is due to the higher information density of linguistic landscapes. At the same time, the article also discusses other possible reasons for this phenomenon.