Eye Movements during Geometrical Problem Solving

Diagrams are used extensively in posing and solving geometry problems. It is likely that strategies that good problem-solvers have developed for looking at diagrams reflect their reasoning about each problem. This suggested that the eye-movement patterns of geometry experts, observed while they solve problems posed with diagrams, are likely to contain new information about their reasoning.Eye-movement data, collected while subjects solved geometry problems posed as diagrams, were examined. Three subjects participated. Two of the subjects (‘experts’) were skilled at solving geometry problems. The third subject (‘non-expert’) had last solved such problems over 50 years prior to the experiment, and did not know how to proceed on most of the problems.The eye-movement pattern reflected cognitive operations used to solve each problem. Fixation durations depended, to some extent, on cognitive or perceptual processing of features at each gaze location. For example, fixations were longer when gaze was on the angle...