The way our eyes move while reading can tell us about the cognitive effort required to process the text. In the present study, we use this fact to generate texts with controllable reading ease. Our method employs a model that predicts human gaze patterns to steer language model outputs towards eliciting certain reading behaviors. We evaluate the approach in an eye-tracking experiment with native and non-native speakers of English. The results demonstrate that the method is effective at making the generated texts easier or harder to read, measured both in terms of reading times and perceived difficulty of the texts. A statistical analysis reveals that the changes in reading behavior are mostly due to features that affect lexical processing. Possible applications of our approach include text simplification for information accessibility and generation of personalized educational material for language learning.

翻译：阅读过程中的眼动模式能够反映文本处理所需的认知努力程度。本研究利用这一事实生成具有可控阅读难易度的文本。我们采用预测人类眼动模式的模型来引导语言模型输出，从而诱发特定的阅读行为。我们通过眼动追踪实验对母语和非母语英语使用者进行评估。结果表明，无论是从阅读时间还是文本感知难度来衡量，该方法都能有效使生成文本更易或更难阅读。统计分析显示，阅读行为的改变主要源于影响词汇加工的特征。本方法的潜在应用包括提升信息可及性的文本简化，以及为语言学习生成个性化教育材料。