Francesca Zermiani

Institute of Educational Science, University of Stuttgart
Institute for Visualisation and Interactive Systems, University of Stuttgart

+49 711 685 84365 Geschwister-Scholl-Str. 24d, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany University of Stuttgart, Room 3.347 Google Scholar

Biography

Francesca Zermiani is a PhD student in the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS) since February 2021, jointly supervised with Jun.-Prof. Maria Wirzberger. Francesca holds a Bachelor’s degree in Language Studies from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy) and a Master’s degree in Cognitive Science from Lund University (Sweden). Her research interests include educational technologies, eye tracking and attentional processes, as well as attention disorders (ADHD). Besides, she worked as a research intern within the field of Computational Linguistics. Her current research focuses on investigating individual differences in resumption strategies. In particular, she is interested in developing eye-based techniques to support students in resuming interrupted tasks.

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Supervision

2023

Offline Resumption Detection in Reading (B.Sc.) Abel Gitzing+

+Co-supervised with EKta Sood and Chuhan Jiao

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Publications

(Zermiani et al., 2024; Zermiani et al., 2024; Zermiani et al., 2022; Alhama et al., 2021; Zermiani, 2021; Zermiani et al., 2020)

1. 

   Individual differences in visuo-spatial working memory capacity and prior knowledge during interrupted reading

   Francesca Zermiani, Prajit Dhar, Florian Strohm, Sibylle Baumbach, Andreas Bulling, Maria Wirzberger

   Frontiers in Cognition, 3, pp. 1–9, 2024.

   Abstract Links BibTeX Project

   Interruptions are often pervasive and require attentional shifts from the primary task. Limited data are available on the factors influencing individuals’ efficiency in resuming from interruptions during digital reading. The reported investigation -conducted using the InteRead dataset -examined whether individual differences in visuo-spatial working memory capacity (vsWMC) and prior knowledge could influence resumption lag times during interrupted reading. Participants’ vsWMC capacity was assessed using the symmetry span (SSPAN) task, while a pre-test questionnaire targeted their background knowledge about the text. While reading an extract from a Sherlock Holmes story, they were interrupted six times and asked to answer an opinion question. Our analyses revealed that the interaction between vsWMC and prior knowledge significantly predicted the time needed to resume reading following an interruption. The results from our analyses are discussed in relation to theoretical frameworks of task resumption and current research in the field.

   doi: 10.3389/fcogn.2024.1434642

   Paper: zermiani24_fic.pdf

   @article{zermiani24_fic, title = {Individual differences in visuo-spatial working memory capacity and prior knowledge during interrupted reading}, author = {Zermiani, Francesca and Dhar, Prajit and Strohm, Florian and Baumbach, Sibylle and Bulling, Andreas and Wirzberger, Maria}, year = {2024}, doi = {10.3389/fcogn.2024.1434642}, pages = {1--9}, volume = {3}, journal = {Frontiers in Cognition} }

1. 

   InteRead: An Eye Tracking Dataset of Interrupted Reading

   Francesca Zermiani, Prajit Dhar, Ekta Sood, Fabian Kögel, Andreas Bulling, Maria Wirzberger

   Proc. 31st Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING), pp. 9154–9169, 2024.

   Abstract Links BibTeX Project

   Eye movements during reading offer a window into cognitive processes and language comprehension, but the scarcity of reading data with interruptions – which learners frequently encounter in their everyday learning environments – hampers advances in the development of intelligent learning technologies. We introduce InteRead – a novel 50-participant dataset of gaze data recorded during self-paced reading of real-world text. InteRead further offers fine-grained annotations of interruptions interspersed throughout the text as well as resumption lags incurred by these interruptions. Interruptions were triggered automatically once readers reached predefined target words. We validate our dataset by reporting interdisciplinary analyses on different measures of gaze behavior. In line with prior research, our analyses show that the interruptions as well as word length and word frequency effects significantly impact eye movements during reading. We also explore individual differences within our dataset, shedding light on the potential for tailored educational solutions. InteRead is accessible from our datasets web-page: https://www.ife.uni-stuttgart.de/en/llis/research/datasets/.

   doi:

   Paper: zermiani24_coling.pdf

   Paper Access: https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.802/

   @inproceedings{zermiani24_coling, title = {InteRead: An Eye Tracking Dataset of Interrupted Reading}, author = {Zermiani, Francesca and Dhar, Prajit and Sood, Ekta and Kögel, Fabian and Bulling, Andreas and Wirzberger, Maria}, year = {2024}, booktitle = {Proc. 31st Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING)}, pages = {9154--9169}, doi = {}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.802/} }

1. 

   Mind Wandering Trait-level Tendencies During Lecture Viewing: A Pilot Study

   Francesca Zermiani, Andreas Bulling, Maria Wirzberger

   Proc. EduEye Workshop on Eye Tracking in Learning and Education (EduEye), pp. 1–7, 2022.

   Abstract Links BibTeX Project

   Mind wandering (MW) is defined as a shift of attention to task-unrelated internal thoughts that is pervasive and disruptive for learning performance. Current state-of-the-art gaze-based attention-aware intelligent systems are capable of detecting MW from eye movements and delivering interventions to mitigate its negative effects. However, the beneficial functions of MW and its trait-level tendency, defined as the content of MW experience, are still largely neglected by these systems. In this pilot study, we address the questions of whether different MW trait-level tendencies can be detected through off-screen fixations’ frequency and duration and blink rate during a lecture viewing task. We focus on prospective planning and creative problem-solving as two of the main MW trait-level tendencies. Despite the non-significance, the descriptive values show a higher frequency and duration of off-screen fixations, but lower blink rate, in the creative problem-solving MW condition. Interestingly, we do find a highly significant correlation between MW level and engagement scores in the prospective planning MW group. Potential explanations for the observed results are discussed. Overall, these findings represent a preliminary step towards the development of more accurate and adaptive learning technologies, and call for further studies on MW trait-level tendency detection.

   doi: 10.1145/3517031.3529241

   Paper: zermiani22_edueye.pdf

   @inproceedings{zermiani22_edueye, title = {Mind Wandering Trait-level Tendencies During Lecture Viewing: A Pilot Study}, author = {Zermiani, Francesca and Bulling, Andreas and Wirzberger, Maria}, year = {2022}, booktitle = {Proc. EduEye Workshop on Eye Tracking in Learning and Education (EduEye)}, doi = {10.1145/3517031.3529241}, pages = {1--7} }

1. Retrodiction as Delayed Recurrence: the Case of Adjectives in Italian and English

   Raquel G. Alhama, Francesca Zermiani, Atiqah Khaliq

   Proc. the 19th Annual Workshop of the Australasian Language Technology Association, pp. 1–6, 2021.

   Links BibTeX Project

   Paper Access: https://aclanthology.org/2021.alta-1.17

   @inproceedings{zermiani21_alta, title = {Retrodiction as Delayed Recurrence: the Case of Adjectives in Italian and English}, author = {Alhama, Raquel G. and Zermiani, Francesca and Khaliq, Atiqah}, year = {2021}, booktitle = {Proc. the 19th Annual Workshop of the Australasian Language Technology Association}, pages = {1--6}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/2021.alta-1.17} }

2. Is a wandering mind always a distracted mind? Identifying the costs and benefits of mind wandering in learning contexts

   Francesca Zermiani

   Proceedings of the 3rd German Human Factors Summer School, pp. 30–33, 2021.

   Links BibTeX Project

   Paper Access: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas-Schrank/publication/356879909_Enhancing_the_Teleoperator’s_Situation_Awareness_by_Human-Centered_HMI_Design/links/61b8d2fea6251b553aba994c/Enhancing-the-Teleoperators-Situation-Awareness-by-Human-Centered-HMI-Design.pdf#page=34

   @inproceedings{zermiani21_hf, title = {Is a wandering mind always a distracted mind? Identifying the costs and benefits of mind wandering in learning contexts}, author = {Zermiani, Francesca}, year = {2021}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd German Human Factors Summer School}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andreas-Schrank/publication/356879909_Enhancing_the_Teleoperator's_Situation_Awareness_by_Human-Centered_HMI_Design/links/61b8d2fea6251b553aba994c/Enhancing-the-Teleoperators-Situation-Awareness-by-Human-Centered-HMI-Design.pdf#page=34}, pages = {30--33} }

1. ‘Long nose’ and ‘naso lungo’: Establishing the need for retrodiction in computational models of word learning

   Francesca Zermiani, Atiqah Khaliq, Raquel Garrido Alhama

   Poster presented at Many Paths to Language (virtual MPaL), 2020.

   Links BibTeX Project

   Paper Access: https://www.mpi.nl/events/many-paths-language-mpal

   @inproceedings{zermiani20_mpal, title = {{\textquoteleft}Long nose{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}naso lungo{\textquoteright}: Establishing the need for retrodiction in computational models of word learning}, author = {Zermiani, Francesca and Khaliq, Atiqah and {Garrido Alhama}, Raquel}, year = {2020}, language = {English}, booktitle = {Poster presented at Many Paths to Language (virtual MPaL)}, url = {https://www.mpi.nl/events/many-paths-language-mpal} }