Most studies looking at the word frequency effect use eye tracking data. When words have a higher frequency, readers fixate on them for shorter amounts of time. In one study, participants ' eye movements were recorded as they scanned single sentence stimuli for topic relevant words. Researchers used an Eyelink eye tracker to record the movements of the participants ' eyes. Reading times were found to be longer when focusing for comprehension due to increased average fixation durations. Results showed that reading for comprehension rather than scanning for certain words took longer fixations on the text.
a fairly common way to test for the word frequency effect is to
record the movements of the participants ' eyes