Tracing How Annotators Think: Augmenting Preference Judgments with Reading Processes

Abstract: We propose an annotation approach that captures not only labels but also the reading process underlying annotators' decisions, e.g., what parts of the text they focus on, re-read or skim. Using this framework, we conduct a case study on the preference annotation task, creating a dataset PreferRead that contains fine-grained annotator reading behaviors obtained from mouse tracking. PreferRead enables detailed analysis of how annotators navigate between a prompt and two candidate responses before selecting their preference. We find that annotators re-read a response in roughly half of all trials, most often revisiting the option they ultimately choose, and rarely revisit the prompt. Reading behaviors are also significantly related to annotation outcomes: re-reading is associated with higher inter-annotator agreement, whereas long reading paths and times are associated with lower agreement. These results demonstrate that reading processes provide a complementary cognitive dimension for understanding annotator reliability, decision-making and disagreement in complex, subjective NLP tasks. Our code and data are publicly available.