75 students of the University of Potsdam all of whom were native speakers of German with normal or corrected-to-normal vision participated in the experiment. Participants with soft lenses were excluded from participation as soft lenses often pose serious challenges for the calibration of the eye-tracker. They were either students of biology or of physics in either their first semester of the BSc program (beginner) or graduate students currently attending a MSc or PhD program (expert). Participants were requested to not have consumed any alcohol the day of the experiment and to not be suffering from sleep deprivation. Participants received a minium compensation of 10 EUR and up to 20 EUR if they answered a specific number of comprehension questions correctly.
| Physics | Biology | |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 12 | 16 |
| Advanced | 20 | 27 |
The field of studies (including area specialization if applicable), the current semester of studies, gender, age,
handedness, whether the participant was wearing contact lenses or glasses, hours of sleep the night before the
experiment, alcohol consumption within 24h hours before the experiment, whether or not the participant had grown
up bilingually, and the state (Bundesland) where the German language was acquired were recorded. Some of that data is
made available in the participant_data.tsv file. Please see the CODEBOOK.md for more information on the available information.
| column | description | value | range/choices |
|---|---|---|---|
| reader_id | unique reader identifier | int | 0-105 |
| reader_domain | reader's field of study | categorical | {pyhsics,biology} |
| reader_domain_numeric | numeric value of reader domain | int | biology==0 physics==1 |
| expert_status | reader's expert status | categorical | {beginner, expert} |
| expert_status_numeric | numerical value of expert_status | int | beginner==0 expert==1 |
| domain_expert_status | reader's domain expertise | categorical | biology-beginner biology-expert physics-beginner physics-expert |
| domain_expert_status_numeric | numerical value of expert_status | int | biology-beginner==0 biology-expert==1 physics-beginner==2 physics-expert==3 |
| glasses | whether reader had glasses | categorical | {yes,no,nan} |
| age | reader's age | float | 18-41, nan |
| handedness | reader's handedness | categorical | {right,left} |
| hours_sleep | reader's number of sleep night before | float | 0-11 |
| alcohol | whether reader consumed alcohol night before experiment | categorical | {yes, no, nan} |
| gender | reader's gender | categorical | male,female,nan |
| gender_numeric | numerical value of reader's gender | int | male==0 female==1 |