Hylog: A Hybrid Approach to Logging Text Production in Non-alphabetic Scripts
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| author | Crotti, Roberto Denaro, Giovanni Du, Zhiqiang Martín, Ricardo Muñoz |
| author_facet | Crotti, Roberto Denaro, Giovanni Du, Zhiqiang Martín, Ricardo Muñoz |
| contents | Research keyloggers are essential for cognitive studies of text production, yet most fail to capture the on-screen transformations performed by Input Method Editors (IMEs) for non-alphabetic scripts. To address this methodological gap, we present Hylog, a novel hybrid logging system that combines analytical keylogging with ecological text logging for a more complete and finer-grained analysis. Our modular, open-source system uses plug-ins for standard applications (Microsoft Word, Google Chrome) to capture both keyboard output and rendered text, which a hybridizer module then synchronizes into a dual trace. To validate the system's technical feasibility and demonstrate its analytical capabilities, we conducted a proof-of-concept study where two volunteers translated a text into simplified Chinese. Hylog successfully captured keypresses and temporal intervals between Latin letters, Chinese characters, and IME confirmations -- some measurements invisible to traditional keyloggers. The resulting data enable the formulation of new, testable hypotheses about the cognitive restrictions and affordances at different linguistic layers in IME-mediated typing. Our plug-in architecture enables extension to other IME systems and fosters more inclusive multilingual text-production research. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_17753 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Hylog: A Hybrid Approach to Logging Text Production in Non-alphabetic Scripts Crotti, Roberto Denaro, Giovanni Du, Zhiqiang Martín, Ricardo Muñoz Computation and Language Research keyloggers are essential for cognitive studies of text production, yet most fail to capture the on-screen transformations performed by Input Method Editors (IMEs) for non-alphabetic scripts. To address this methodological gap, we present Hylog, a novel hybrid logging system that combines analytical keylogging with ecological text logging for a more complete and finer-grained analysis. Our modular, open-source system uses plug-ins for standard applications (Microsoft Word, Google Chrome) to capture both keyboard output and rendered text, which a hybridizer module then synchronizes into a dual trace. To validate the system's technical feasibility and demonstrate its analytical capabilities, we conducted a proof-of-concept study where two volunteers translated a text into simplified Chinese. Hylog successfully captured keypresses and temporal intervals between Latin letters, Chinese characters, and IME confirmations -- some measurements invisible to traditional keyloggers. The resulting data enable the formulation of new, testable hypotheses about the cognitive restrictions and affordances at different linguistic layers in IME-mediated typing. Our plug-in architecture enables extension to other IME systems and fosters more inclusive multilingual text-production research. |
| title | Hylog: A Hybrid Approach to Logging Text Production in Non-alphabetic Scripts |
| topic | Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.17753 |