Browsing Research documents by Author "Carl, Michael"
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Carl, Michael; Doherty, Stephen; O’Brien, Sharon (Preprint, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Eye tracking has been used successfully as a technique for measuring cognitive load in reading, psycholinguistics, writing, language acquisition etc for some time now. Its application as a technique for automatically measuring the reading ease of MT output has not yet, to our knowledge, been tested. We report here on a preliminary study testing the use and validity of an eye tracking methodology as a means of semi- and/or automatically evaluating machine translation output. 50 French machine translated sentences, 25 rated as excellent and 25 rated as poor in an earlier human evaluation, were selected. 10 native speakers of French were instructed to read the MT sentences for comprehensibility. Their eye gaze data were recorded non-invasively using a Tobii 1750 eye tracker. The average gaze time and fixation count were found to be higher for the “bad” sentences, while average fixation duration and pupil dilations were not found to be substantially different between output rated as good or bad. Comparisons between BLEU scores and eye gaze data were also made and found to correlate well with gaze time and fixation count, and to a lesser extent with pupil dilation and fixation duration. We conclude that the eye tracking data, in particular gaze time and fixation count, correlate reasonably well with human evaluation of MT output but fixation duration and pupil dilation may be less reliable indicators of reading difficulty for MT output. We also conclude that eye tracking has promise as an automatic MT Evaluation technique. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8045 Files in this item: 1
SubmissionforMT_dohertyobriencarl.pdf (226.2Kb) -
Carl, Michael (, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: One of the aims of the Eye-to-IT project is to investigate the possibility of using eye-tracking devices for detecting situations of targeted help for human translators. A prerequisite for automated assistance in human translation is the understanding and modelling of reading behaviour, the ability to follow human eye movements and to map gaze sample points — the output of eyetracking devices — onto words and symbols fixated. Within the Eye-to-IT project we currently use a so-called “Gaze-to- Word Mapping” (GWM) device (ˇSpakov 2008) that first computes possible fixations from sequences of gaze sample coordinates and then maps the fixations on the words which are likely to be fixated. This paper suggests an alternative framework of a probabilistic gaze mapping model for reading, in which fixations on textual objects are directly computed from the gaze sample points. The framework integrates various knowledge sources with the aim to compute the most likely fixations on words and symbols on the basis of the available data. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8043 Files in this item: 1
CLS.pdf (186.2Kb) -
Carl, Michael; Kay, Martin; Jensen, Kristian T. H. (Preprint, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper investigates properties of translation processes, as observed in the translation behaviour of student and professional translators. The translation process can be divided into a gisting, drafting and post-editing phase. We find that student translators have longer gisting phases whereas professional translators have longer post-editing phases. Long-distance revisions, which would typically be expected during post-editing, occur to the same extent during drafting as during post-editing. Further, both groups of translators seem to face the same translation problems. We suggest how those findings might be taken into account in the design of computer assisted translation tools. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8046 Files in this item: 1
LonDistRevision.pdf (651.7Kb) -
Low Resources Machine TranslationCarl, Michael; Maite, Melero; Badia, Toni; Vandeghinste, Vincent; Dirix, Peter; Schuurman, Ineke; Markantonatou, Stella; Sofianopoulos, Sokratis; Vassiliou, Marina; Yannoutsou, Olga (, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: METIS-II was a EU-FET MT project running from October 2004 to September 2007, which aimed at translating free text input without resorting to parallel corpora. The idea was to use ‘basic’ linguistic tools and representations and to link them with patterns and statistics from the monolingual target-language corpus. The METIS-II project has four partners, translating from their ‘home’ languages Greek, Dutch, German, and Spanish into English. The paper outlines the basic ideas of the project, their implementation, the resources used, and the results obtained. It also gives examples of how METIS-II has continued beyond its lifetime and the original scope of the project. On the basis of the results and experiences obtained, we believe that the approach is promising and offers the potential for development in various directions. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8037 Files in this item: 1
METIS-II.pdf (503.5Kb) -
Carl, Michael; Lykke Jakobsen,Arnt; Jensen, Kristian T. H. (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: One of the aims of the Eye-to-IT project (FP6 IST 517590) is to integrate keyboard logging and eye-tracking data to study and anticipate the behaviour of human translators. This so-called User-Activity Data (UAD) would make it possible to empirically ground cognitive models and to validate hypotheses of human processing concepts in the data. In order to thoroughly ground a cognitive model of the user in empirical observation, two conditions must be met as a minimum. All UAD data must be fully synchronised so that data relate to a common construct. Secondly, data must be represented in a queryable form so that large volumes of data can be analysed electronically. Two programs have evolved in the Eye-to-IT project: TRANSLOG is designed to register and replay keyboard logging data, while GWM is a tool to record and replay eye-movement data. This paper reports on an attempt to synchronise and integrate the representations of both software components so that sequences of keyboard and eye-movement data can be retrieved and their interaction studied. The outcome of this effort would be the possibility to correlate eye- and keyboard activities of translators (the user model) with properties of the source and target texts and thus to uncover dependencies in the UAD. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8041 Files in this item: 1
NLPCS09.pdf (481.2Kb) -
Carl, Michael (, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The paper introduces a new research strategy for the investigation of human translation behavior. While conventional cognitive research methods make use of think aloud protocols (TAP), we introduce and investigate User- Activity Data (UAD). UAD consists of the translator’s recorded keystroke and eye-movement behavior, which makes it possible to replay a translation session and to register the subjects’ comments on their own behavior during a retrospective interview. UAD has the advantage of being objective and reproducable, and, in contrast to TAP, does not interfere with the translation process. The paper gives the background of this technique and an example on a English-to-Danish translation. Our goal is to elaborate and investigate cognitively grounded basic translation concepts which are materialized and traceable in the UAD and which, in a later stage, will provide the basis for appropriate and targeted help for the translator at a given moment. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8044 Files in this item: 1
UAD-3.pdf (408.4Kb) -
A Program for Recording User Activity Data for Empirical Reading and Writing ResearchCarl, Michael (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper presents a novel implementation of Translog-II. Translog-II is a Windows-oriented program to record and study reading and writing processes on a computer. In our research, it is an instrument to acquire objective, digital data of human translation processes. As their predecessors, Translog 2000 and Translog 2006, also Translog-II consists of two main components: Translog-II Supervisor and Translog-II User, which are used to create a project file, to run a text production experiments (a user reads, writes or translates a text) and to replay the session. Translog produces a log files which contains all user activity data of the reading, writing, or translation session, and which can be evaluated by external tools. While there is a large body of translation process research based on Translog, this paper gives an overview of the Translog-II functions and its data visualization options. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8435 Files in this item: 1
Michael_Carl_2012.pdf (824.8Kb) -
Quantifying alignment units with keystroke dataCarl, Michael (, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The paper discusses a method to triangulate process and product data. We suggest converting Translog data into a relational format which contains both process and product data. We outline how this representation allows us to retrieve and correlate the various dimensions of the data more easily. The concept of Alignment Unit (AU) is introduced and contrasted with that of Translation Unit (TU). While AUs refer to translation equivalences in the source and target texts of the product data, TUs refer to cognitive entities that can be observed in the process data. With an (almost) exhaustive fragmentation of the source and target texts into AUs, we are able to distribute and allocate the entire set of keystroke data to appropriate AUs. Using the properties of the keystroke data, AUs are quantified in a novel way which enables us to visualise and investigate the structure of translation production on a fine-grained scale. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8040 Files in this item: 1
keystrokes.pdf (940.0Kb)
Now showing items 1-8 of 8