School of Communication, The Ohio State University.
Psychol Sci. 2021 Jun;32(6):836-848. doi: 10.1177/0956797621991142. Epub 2021 May 25.
More than 100 countries allow people to vote directly on policies in direct democracy elections (e.g., 2016 Brexit referendum). Politicians are often responsible for writing ballot language, and voters frequently encounter ballot measures that are difficult to understand. We examined whether eye movements from a small group of individuals can predict the consequences of ballot language on large-scale voting decisions. Across two preregistered studies (Study 1: = 120 registered voters, Study 2: = 120 registered voters), we monitored laboratory participants' eye movements as they read real ballot measures. We found that eye-movement responses associated with difficulties in language comprehension predicted aggregate voting decisions to abstain from voting and vote against ballot measures in U.S. elections (total number of votes cast = 137,661,232). Eye movements predicted voting decisions beyond what was accounted for by widely used measures of language difficulty. This finding demonstrates a new way of linking eye movements to out-of-sample aggregate-level behaviors.
超过 100 个国家允许人们在直接民主选举中直接投票决定政策（例如，2016 年英国脱欧公投）。政客通常负责撰写投票语言，而选民经常遇到难以理解的投票措施。我们研究了一小部分人的眼球运动是否可以预测投票语言对大规模投票决策的影响。在两项预先注册的研究中（研究 1：= 120 名注册选民，研究 2：= 120 名注册选民），我们监测了实验室参与者阅读真实投票措施时的眼球运动。我们发现，语言理解困难相关的眼球运动反应可以预测美国选举中的弃权和投票反对投票措施的总投票决定（总票数= 137661232）。眼球运动预测的投票决定超出了语言难度的常用衡量标准所能解释的范围。这一发现展示了一种将眼球运动与样本外总体行为联系起来的新方法。
