ИСТИНА

The study aimed at intergroup differences in oculomotor patterns of Russian and Japanese students in verbal search tasks. Subjects searched for English words in letter matrices (15x15) presented on a screen for 40 seconds. Each matrix contained 10 words, horizontally and vertically oriented in equal proportion. Word frequency, length and emotional valence were controlled. During the search, the number of words found and eye-movement parametres were registered with SMI RED250. Oculomotor patterns of Japanese students showed shorter fixations (185.6 ms vs 218.2 ms at F(1;205)=29.15, p<0.01) and higher saccade amplitudes (10.64° vs 4.99° at F(1;205)=44.32, p<0.01). Their visual strategy tended to be ambient and less efficient in this task as compared to those of Russians. Though the students were at the same level of English competence, the results can be explained through the differences in their linguistic experience. The study was sponsored by the RFBR research grant № 16-36-00044.