The word grouping hypothesis and eye movements during reading.

The distribution of landing positions and durations of first fixations in a region containing a noun preceded by either an article (e.g., the soldiers) or a high-frequency 3-letter word (e.g., all soldiers) were compared. Although there were fewer first fixations on the blank space between the high-frequency 3-letter word and the noun than on the surrounding letters (and the fixations on the blank space were shorter), this pattern did not occur when the noun was preceded by an article. R. Radach (1996) inferred from a similar experiment that did not manipulate the type of short word that 2 words could be processed as a perceptual unit during reading when the first word is a short word. As this different pattern of fixations is restricted to article-noun pairs, it indicates that word grouping does not occur purely on the basis of word length during reading; moreover, as the authors demonstrate, one can explain the observed patterns in both conditions more parsimoniously without adopting a word-grouping mechanism in eye movement control during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task effects on eye movements during reading.

The present study examined how proofreading and reading-for-comprehension instructions influence eye movements during reading. Thirty-seven participants silently read sentences containing compound words as target words while their eye movements were being recorded. We manipulated word length and frequency to examine how task instructions influence orthographic versus lexical–semantic processing during reading. Task instructions influenced both temporal and spatial aspects of eye movements: The initial landing position in words was shifted leftward, the saccade length was shorter, first fixation and gaze duration were longer, and refixation probability was higher during proofreading than during reading for comprehension. Moreover, in comparison to instructions for reading for comprehension, proofreading instructions increased both orthographic and lexical–semantic processing. This became apparent in a greater word length and word frequency effect in gaze duration during proofreading than during reading for comprehension. The present study suggests that the allocation of attentional resources during reading is significantly modulated by task demands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time course of plausibility effects on eye movements in reading: Evidence from noun-noun compounds.

Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing noun-noun compounds that varied in frequency (e.g., elevator mechanic, mountain lion). The left constituent of the compound was either plausible or implausible as a head noun at the point at which it appeared, whereas the compound as a whole was always plausible. When the head noun analysis of the left constituent was implausible, reading times on this word were inflated, beginning with the first fixation. This finding is consistent with previous demonstrations of very rapid effects of plausibility on eye movements. Compound frequency did not modulate the plausibility effect, and all disruption was resolved by the time readers' eyes moved to the next word. These findings suggest (contra Kennison, 2005) that the parser initially analyzes a singular noun as a head instead of a modifier. In addition, the findings confirm that the very rapid effect of plausibility on eye movements is not due to strategic factors, because in the present experiment, unlike in previous demonstrations, this effect appeared in sentences that were globally plausible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracking the mind during reading via eye movements: Comments on Kliegl, Nuthmann, and Engbert (2006).

R. Kliegl, A. Nuthmann, and R. Engbert (see record 2006-01956-002) reported an impressive set of data analyses dealing with the influence of the prior, present, and next word on the duration of the current eye fixation during reading. They argued that outcomes of their regression analyses indicate that lexical processing is distributed across a number of words during reading. The authors of this comment question their conclusions and address 4 different issues: (a) whether there is evidence for distributed lexical processing, (b) whether so-called parafoveal-on-foveal effects are widespread, (c) the role of correlational analyses in reading research, and (d) problems in their analyses because they use only cases in which words are fixated exactly once. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between visual attention and eye movements.

Experimental psychologists have recently amassed a great deal of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the visual system can select a particular location over other locations in the visual field for further analysis without overtly orienting the eyes to the selected location. At the same time, we know that during reading and scene perception, the eyes are overtly directed to new regions of the visual field every 200 to 300 msec on average. How are covert shifts of attention and overt movements of the eyes related during complex visual-cognitive tasks? The available evidence from studies of the perceptual span in reading suggests that attention is allocated asymmetrically around the fixation point, with more information acquired in the direction that the eyes are moving. Based on this evidence and evidence from explorations of eye movement control in reading, the author presents a tentative model of the relationship between attention and eye movements, called the Sequential Attention Model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time course of word frequency and case alternation effects on fixation times in reading: Evidence for lexical control of eye movements.

Participants' eye movements were monitored while they read sentences in which high-frequency and low-frequency target words were presented either in normal font (e.g., account) or case alternated (e.g., aCcOuNt). The influence of the word frequency and case alternation manipulations on fixation times was examined. Although both manipulations had comparable effects on standard first-pass fixation measures, word frequency, but not case alternation was found to influence the duration of the first fixation in trials with multiple first-pass fixations. Assuming that lexical processing is more often incomplete at the termination of the first in multiple first-pass fixations than at the end of single first-pass fixations, the present findings provide strong evidence for an influence of word frequency on early lexical processing. Importantly, such a demonstration of a fast acting influence of a lexical variable on fixation times satisfies a critical prerequisite for establishing lexical control of eye movements in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferred goals in narratives: Evidence from self-paced reading, recall, and eye movements.

Three convergent methodologies were used to investigate the generation and reinstatement of goals not explicitly stated in a text. Readers read paragraphs adapted from J. S. Huitema, S. Dopkins, C. M. Klin, and J. L. Myers's (1993) study, which conveyed a character's goal early in the text. The goal was either stated explicitly or implied. An event was described later in the text that was either consistent or inconsistent with the goal. Line-by-line reading data, recall for the narratives, and eye-movement data were collected. Evidence is presented that readers infer a character's goal online at the time the information is presented, and the inferred goal functions like an explicitly stated goal in online comprehension processes and in the resulting memory representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vowel processing during silent reading: Evidence from eye movements.

Two eye movement experiments examined whether skilled readers include vowels in the early phonological representations used in word recognition during silent reading. Target words were presented in sentences preceded by parafoveal previews in which the vowel phoneme was concordant or discordant with the vowel phoneme in the target word. In Experiment 1, the orthographic vowel differed from the target in both the concordant and discordant preview conditions. In Experiment 2, the vowel letters in the preview were identical to those in the target word. The phonological vowel was ambiguous, however, and the final consonants of the previews biased the vowel phoneme either toward or away from the target's vowel phoneme. In both experiments, shorter reading times were observed for targets preceded by concordant previews than by discordant previews. Implications for models of word recognition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements and the use of parafoveal word length information in reading.

Eye movements were monitored in 4 experiments that explored the role of parafoveal word length in reading. The experiments employed a type of compound word where the deletion of a letter results in 2 short words (e.g., backhand, back and). The boundary technique (K. Rayner, 1975) was employed to manipulate word length information in the parafovea. Accuracy of the parafoveal word length preview significantly affected landing positions and fixation durations. This disruption was larger for 2-word targets, but the results demonstrated that this interaction was not due to the morphological status of the target words. Manipulation of sentence context also demonstrated that parafoveal word length information can be used in combination with sentence context to narrow down lexical candidates. The 4 experiments converge in demonstrating that an important role of parafoveal word length information is to direct the eyes to the center of the parafoveal word. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information integration across eye movements.

The visual world contains more information than can be perceived in a single glance. Consequently, humans make eye and head movements and somehow construct a stable and continuous representation of the visual environment from these successive views. How this is accomplished has puzzled psychologists for over a century. The present research investigated the properties of transsaccadic integration, the integration of information across saccadic eye movements. The results of several experiments suggest that the mental representation of the environment that is constructed across eye movements is surprisingly schematic and undetailed, and based more on the contents of the current fixation than on one's memory for the contents of previous fixations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements in reading: Perceptual and cognitive processes.

This article discusses the variability of eye movement behavior. The variability exists between readers, so that the average fixation duration for sonic readers my be around 200 ms and for other readers it may be closer to 300 ms; the average saccade length for some readers may be 6 letter spaces, while for others it may be closer lo 10 letter spaces; and some readers rarely regress while others regress quite frequently. These eye movement characteristics can also be influenced by text difficulty; more difficult text leads to longer fixation durations, shorter saccades, and more regressions. More important than the between reader variability is the within reader variability that exists with each of these measures. The article also discusses research on eye movement during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stable individual differences across images in human saccadic eye movements.

Individual differences in eye movements during picture viewing were examined across image format, content, and foveal quality in 3 experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that an individual's fixation durations were strongly related across 3 types of scene formats and that saccade amplitudes followed the same pattern. In Experiment 2, a similar relationship was observed for fixation durations across faces and scenes, although the amplitude relationship did not hold as strongly. In Experiment 3, the duration and amplitude relationships were observed when foveal information was degraded and even removed. Eye movement characteristics differ across individuals, but there is a great deal of consistency within individuals when viewing different types of images. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading spaced and unspaced Chinese text: Evidence from eye movements.

Native Chinese readers' eye movements were monitored as they read text that did or did not demark word boundary information. In Experiment 1, sentences had 4 types of spacing: normal unspaced text, text with spaces between words, text with spaces between characters that yielded nonwords, and finally text with spaces between every character. The authors investigated whether the introduction of spaces into unspaced Chinese text facilitates reading and whether the word or, alternatively, the character is a unit of information that is of primary importance in Chinese reading. Global and local measures indicated that sentences with unfamiliar word spaced format were as easy to read as visually familiar unspaced text. Nonword spacing and a space between every character produced longer reading times. In Experiment 2, highlighting was used to create analogous conditions: normal Chinese text, highlighting that marked words, highlighting that yielded nonwords, and highlighting that marked each character. The data from both experiments clearly indicated that words, and not individual characters, are the unit of primary importance in Chinese reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of context on eye movements when reading about possible and impossible events.

Plausibility violations resulting in impossible scenarios lead to earlier and longer lasting eye movement disruption than violations resulting in highly unlikely scenarios (K. Rayner, T. Warren, B. J. Juhasz, & S. P. Liversedge, 2004; T. Warren & K. McConnell, 2007). This could reflect either differences in the timing of availability of different kinds of information (e.g., selectional restrictions, world knowledge, and context) or differences in their relative power to guide semantic interpretation. The authors investigated eye movements to possible and impossible events in real-world and fantasy contexts to determine when contextual information influences detection of impossibility cued by a semantic mismatch between a verb and an argument. Gaze durations on a target word were longer to impossible events independent of context. However, a measure of the time elapsed from first fixating the target word to moving past it showed disruption only in the real-world context. These results suggest that contextual information did not eliminate initial disruption but moderated it quickly thereafter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability.

Eye movements were monitored as subjects read sentences containing high- or low-predictable target words. The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: Half of the target words were predictable, and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: The target words were short (4–6 letters), medium (7–9 letters), or long (10–12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, because the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of eye movements in the missing-letter effect revisited with the rapid serial visual presentation procedure.

When participants read a text while searching for a target letter, they are more likely to miss the target letter embedded in frequent function words than in less frequent content words. This effect is usually observed with a text displayed normally, for which it has been found that frequent function words are fixated for a smaller amount of time than less frequent content words. However, similar pattern of omissions have been observed with a rapid serial visual presentation procedure in which words appear one at a time. These parallel results would demonstrate that fixation duration per se is not the proximal cause of the missing-letter effect only if eye movements are not made during the rapid serial visual presentation procedure. Therefore, the authors performed eye monitoring during the rapid serial visual presentation procedure. Results revealed that, with a rapid serial visual presentation procedure, participants fixated function and content words for almost the entire presentation duration. It is concluded that eye movements are not the proximal cause of the missing-letter effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word recognition and syntactic attachment in reading: Evidence for a staged architecture.

In 3 experiments, the author examined how readers' eye movements are influenced by joint manipulations of a word's frequency and the syntactic fit of the word in its context. In the critical conditions of the first 2 experiments, a high- or low-frequency verb was used to disambiguate a garden-path sentence, while in the last experiment, a high- or low-frequency verb constituted a phrase structure violation. The frequency manipulation always influenced the early eye movement measures of first-fixation duration and gaze duration. The context manipulation had a delayed effect in Experiment 1, influencing only the probability of a regressive eye movement from later in the sentence. However, the context manipulation influenced the same early eye movement measures as the frequency effect in Experiments 2 and 3, though there was no statistical interaction between the effects of these variables. The context manipulation also influenced the probability of a regressive eye movement from the verb, though the frequency manipulation did not. These results are shown to confirm predictions emerging from the serial, staged architecture for lexical and integrative processing of the E–Z Reader 10 model of eye movement control in reading (Reichle, Warren, & McConnell, 2009). It is argued, more generally, that the results provide an important constraint on how the relationship between visual word recognition and syntactic attachment is treated in processing models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements of young and older adults during reading.

The eye movements of young and older adults were tracked as they read sentences varying in syntactic complexity. In Experiment 1, cleft object and object relative clause sentences were more difficult to process than cleft subject and subject relative clause sentences; however, older adults made many more regressions, resulting in increased regression path fixation times and total fixation times, than young adults while processing cleft object and object relative clause sentences. In Experiment 2, older adults experienced more difficulty than young adults while reading cleft and relative clause sentences with temporary syntactic ambiguities created by deleting the that complementizers. Regression analyses indicated that readers with smaller working memories need more regressions and longer fixation times to process cleft object and object relative clause sentences. These results suggest that age-associated declines in working memory do affect syntactic processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parafoveal and foveal processing of abbreviations during eye fixations in reading: Making a case for case.

The processing of abbreviations in reading was examined with an eye movement experiment. Abbreviations were of 2 distinct types: acronyms (abbreviations that can be read with the normal grapheme-phoneme correspondence [GPC] rules, such as NASA) and initialisms (abbreviations in which the GPCs are letter names, such as NCAA). Parafoveal and foveal processing of these abbreviations was assessed with the use of the boundary change paradigm (K. Rayner, 1975). Using this paradigm, previews of the abbreviations were either identical to the abbreviation (NASA or NCAA), orthographically legal (NUSO or NOBA), or illegal (NRSB or NRBA). The abbreviations were presented as capital letter strings within normal, predominantly lowercase sentences and also sentences in all capital letters such that the abbreviations would not be visually distinct. The results indicate that acronyms and initialisms undergo different processing during reading and that readers can modulate their processing based on low-level visual cues (distinct capitalization) in parafoveal vision. In particular, readers may be biased to process capitalized letter strings as initialisms in parafoveal vision when the rest of the sentence is normal, lowercase letters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)