Call for Papers

While experimental research in reading has a long tradition in identifying key factors that influence reading patterns—including text properties such as font difficulty, word and structure frequency, word predictability, and dependency length—recent studies have emphasized the importance of individual variability in reading behaviour (e.g., Haeuser & Kray, 2024; Kuperman et al., 2018; Nicenboim et al., 2016; Staub, 2021). This work has linked individual variability in reading patterns to differences in working memory capacity, reading skills, linguistic experience, and domain expertise among readers. This informs our understanding of how text characteristics and individual reader attributes interact to shape eye movements during reading. 

IndiREAD aims to bring together researchers interested in investigating individual differences in reading using both experimental and computational approaches. This workshop will focus on methods such as eye-tracking, self-paced reading, and the Maze task, with particular interest in how reading behaviour is correlated with individual differences factors. We also encourage submissions of computational models for eye movements or reading behavior that shed light on the mechanisms behind these differences. The goal is to foster collaboration between experimental and computational researchers to better understand individual variability among readers. We especially welcome submissions of reading time experiments and modelling of languages beyond English.  

The IndiREAD Workshop invites submissions of abstracts addressing the following questions:  

• How do individual differences impact the way people read?
• How do reading patterns vary across different languages, particularly in bilinguals?
• How do reading patterns change across the lifespan?
• Which individual difference measures are most suitable for capturing variability in reading patterns?
• How can we evaluate psycholinguistic theories of reading and sentence processing across languages?
• How can computational models account for individual differences in reading?
• How does text adaptation influence reading patterns and comprehension among different individuals?
• What statistical methods are best suited for reliably identifying latent groups and relating individual differences to reading performance? 

Workshop dates: November 26-27, 2025

Workshop format: The workshop will be held in-person in Saarbrücken, Germany. It will feature presentations from invited speakers, as well as contributions based on workshop submissions. The format of the presentations (oral or poster) will be determined based on the number of submissions we receive.

Submissions: We invite abstracts from interested presenters, to be submitted by July 23, 2025 to the conference portal on OpenReview.

The abstracts must not exceed 1000 words for the text (excl. captions), 10000 characters for references, and a maximum of 2 tables or figures. Abstracts should be submitted in PDF format, with 2.54 cm margins on all sides and 12-point font size, single-spaced. Please indicate up to three appropriate keywords for your abstract, which will be used for session planning.
 
Abstracts must be written in English and should include a clear title but no information revealing the author(s).

We welcome submissions for work that is being considered by other conferences, workshops, or journals.

Templates for abstracts (doc) (latex).

Volunteer reviewers: We also invite all interested parties with relevant research experience to volunteer to help review abstracts for the workshop. All reviewers should hold a PhD. Please indicate your interest using the following form.

Contact email:  indiread(at)lst.uni-saarland.de