Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese

Diego Alves

Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese

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Abstract

We investigate the effect of dependency distance and its directionality on eye-tracking measures in Brazilian Portuguese. Using the RastrOS corpus enriched with surprisal and syntactic annotations, we find that absolute dependency distance significantly improves the prediction of first fixation durations, supporting memory-based accounts of sentence processing. In contrast, the direction of the dependency (whether the dependent precedes or follows the head) shows weaker and less consistent effects. These results indicate that early lexical retrieval is sensitive to distance magnitude, while later reading measures reflecting integration are less affected, highlighting the complementary role of syntactic distance alongside surprisal in modelling reading behaviour.

Anthology ID:: 2026.propor-1.4
Volume:: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of Portuguese (PROPOR 2026) - Vol. 1
Month:: April
Year:: 2026
Address:: Salvador, Brazil
Editors:: Marlo Souza, Iria de-Dios-Flores, Diana Santos, Larissa Freitas, Jackson Wilke da Cruz Souza, Eugénio Ribeiro
Venue:: PROPOR
SIG:
Publisher:: Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:: 30–40
Language:
URL:: https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.4/
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Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):: Diego Alves. 2026. Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of Portuguese (PROPOR 2026) - Vol. 1, pages 30–40, Salvador, Brazil. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):: Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese (Alves, PROPOR 2026)
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PDF:: https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.4.pdf

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@inproceedings{alves-2026-dependency,
    title = "Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in {B}razilian {P}ortuguese",
    author = "Alves, Diego",
    editor = "Souza, Marlo  and
      de-Dios-Flores, Iria  and
      Santos, Diana  and
      Freitas, Larissa  and
      Souza, Jackson Wilke da Cruz  and
      Ribeiro, Eug{\'e}nio",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of {P}ortuguese ({PROPOR} 2026) - Vol. 1",
    month = apr,
    year = "2026",
    address = "Salvador, Brazil",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.4/",
    pages = "30--40",
    ISBN = "979-8-89176-387-6",
    abstract = "We investigate the effect of dependency distance and its directionality on eye-tracking measures in Brazilian Portuguese. Using the RastrOS corpus enriched with surprisal and syntactic annotations, we find that absolute dependency distance significantly improves the prediction of first fixation durations, supporting memory-based accounts of sentence processing. In contrast, the direction of the dependency (whether the dependent precedes or follows the head) shows weaker and less consistent effects. These results indicate that early lexical retrieval is sensitive to distance magnitude, while later reading measures reflecting integration are less affected, highlighting the complementary role of syntactic distance alongside surprisal in modelling reading behaviour."
}

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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese
%A Alves, Diego
%Y Souza, Marlo
%Y de-Dios-Flores, Iria
%Y Santos, Diana
%Y Freitas, Larissa
%Y Souza, Jackson Wilke da Cruz
%Y Ribeiro, Eugénio
%S Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of Portuguese (PROPOR 2026) - Vol. 1
%D 2026
%8 April
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Salvador, Brazil
%@ 979-8-89176-387-6
%F alves-2026-dependency
%X We investigate the effect of dependency distance and its directionality on eye-tracking measures in Brazilian Portuguese. Using the RastrOS corpus enriched with surprisal and syntactic annotations, we find that absolute dependency distance significantly improves the prediction of first fixation durations, supporting memory-based accounts of sentence processing. In contrast, the direction of the dependency (whether the dependent precedes or follows the head) shows weaker and less consistent effects. These results indicate that early lexical retrieval is sensitive to distance magnitude, while later reading measures reflecting integration are less affected, highlighting the complementary role of syntactic distance alongside surprisal in modelling reading behaviour.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.4/
%P 30-40

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Markdown (Informal)

[Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese](https://aclanthology.org/2026.propor-1.4/) (Alves, PROPOR 2026)

Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese (Alves, PROPOR 2026)

ACL

Diego Alves. 2026. Dependency Distance Effects on Eye-Tracking Measures in Brazilian Portuguese. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Processing of Portuguese (PROPOR 2026) - Vol. 1, pages 30–40, Salvador, Brazil. Association for Computational Linguistics.