Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT4) Practice Exam 2025 - Free CAT4 Practice Questions and Study Guide

In studies measuring eye movements during reading, fixation duration plays a crucial role in understanding how readers engage with text, particularly related to target word frequencies. When participants encounter words that vary in frequency, researchers observe how long they fixate on these words.

Longer fixation durations on lower-frequency words often indicate that these words require more cognitive processing, as they may be less familiar to the reader. Conversely, higher-frequency words, which readers are more accustomed to seeing, typically result in shorter fixation durations. This difference in fixation duration helps researchers infer how quickly and efficiently individuals are able to process different types of words, providing insight into their reading strategies and comprehension mechanisms.

The other options relate to different aspects of reading and comprehension. Comprehension speed might involve overall reading pace but does not specifically capture the granular data provided by fixation durations. Overall reading speed encompasses the entire reading process rather than focusing on specific words. Sentence recall efficacy relates to how well a reader can remember what they have read, but it does not directly measure the immediate processing occurring during reading, which fixation duration does. Thus, fixation duration is the most precise measure in this context, directly linked to the cognitive load experienced by readers as they process varying word frequencies.