The present study investigates the relation between the
reading process and text comprehension during naturalistic
text reading. To that end, participants read easy and difficult
texts while their eye movements were recorded. After each
reading, participants filled-in comprehension questionnaires.
We investigated classical measures of the reading process
related to comprehension (fixation duration, regressive eye
movements), as well as power-law scaling in eye movements
that are indicative of degree of cognitive coordination during
reading. The results show that text difficulty led to longer
fixation durations and stronger power-law scaling in eye
movements. Moreover, the degree of power-law scaling in
eye movements was predictive of text comprehension. In line
with previous research on natural text reading that utilized the
self-paced reading method, power-law scaling turned out to
be a superior predictor of reading comprehension compared
to standard measures, suggesting that it is an effective
measure of cognitive performance in complex reading tasks