The present study investigated the cognitive processes of vocabulary learning under incidental and intentional conditions using eye-tracking. It aims to find out the extent to which intentionality and time restrictions are associated with vocabulary learning; as well as the mechanism through which these relationships are mediated by attention, controlling for the effects of word length, predictability, and part of speech of target words. Forty-four high-intermediate L2 English learners were randomly assigned to one of three different groups: no test announcement with time restriction (Group 1: Incidental Timed), test announcement without time restriction (Group 2: Intentional Untimed), and test announcement with time restriction (Group 3: Intentional Timed). The participants read an 1100-word-long reading passage twice while their eyes were being tracked. Twelve low-frequency English words in the text served as targets for word learning. In order to accurately measure noticing, two eye-tracking measures were used: total fixation duration and the difference between the observed and expected duration. After reading, participants received three surprise vocabulary tests in the following order: form recognition, meaning recall, meaning recognition. The descriptive statistics confirmed a pattern of incremental vocabulary development with the highest scores on form recognition, followed by meaning recognition, and then meaning recall. Eye-movement data showed that Intentional Untimed and Intentional Timed (Group 2 and 3) spent similar amounts of time on target words while Incidental Timed (Group 1) paid significantly less attention to targets than the other groups. More importantly, multivariate multilevel mediation model demonstrated the importance of attention in predicting learning success. Effects of the test announcement and the time limit were completely mediated by the total reading time on target words. The results further support the hypothesis that intentional and incidental learning differ quantitatively by showing that the effect of the test announcement was significant for the total reading time, but not on the extra attentional processing time.
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