Bilingual Reading Fluency and Prediction: Heritage Language versus Second Language

The thesis presents the first comparative investigation of reading fluency and factors that affect it by examining eye movements in reading by Heritage Speakers (HSs) and L2 learners of Russian. The eye movements of bilingual participants are compared to two control groups, monolingual adults and monolingual children. Following the introductory Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 we present the study that establishes basic eye-movement characteristics in reading for Heritage Speakers and L2 learners in connection to proficiency and linguistics factors of word length and frequency. Contrary to our predictions, we found that all eye-movement characteristics of high-proficiency HSs are different from those of monolingual adults but are strikingly similar to eye movements of 8-year-old children. Low-proficiency HSs, on the other hand, were less similar to children and resemble more ‘typical’ unbalanced L2 learners. In general, bilingual readers fixated words for longer times, skipped words fewer times and regressed more than monolingual adults which is consistent with the weaker links account of bilingual language processing. The similarity in eye movements of high-proficiency Heritage Speakers to children is discussed within the divergent attainment theory of Heritage Language development. The goal of the study in Chapter 3 is three-fold. First, using a scanpath approach (patterned sequences of eye movements) we identify common reading strategies that participants rely on in reading isolated sentences. Next, we ask whether these reading strategies correlate with the group to which the reader belongs, i.e., HSs, L2 learners, children, or monolingual adults. Third, we investigate the effect of individual differences on the choice of the reading strategy in two bilingual groups. Our results align with the findings in Chapter 2. We established that monolingual participants use qualitatively and quantitatively different reading strategy from all other groups, whereas high-proficiency HSs and low-proficiency HSs share the same strategy as children and L2 learners, respectively. We discuss findings in respect to divergent attainment theory of HL development as well as good-enough parsing account of sentence processing in L2 which explains the instances of ‘unusual’ reading patterns of the low-proficiency bilinguals. Finally, in the two experiments included in the study in Chapter 4, we ask whether similar to monolinguals, Heritage Speakers and L2 learners are able to anticipate lexical and/or morphosyntactic information to facilitate sentence comprehension in reading. The results of the cloze test in Experiment 1 showed that HSs predict the upcoming lexical item with higher accuracy than L2 learners. Importantly, the size of vocabulary in Russian turned out to be a factor that affects the accuracy of lexical prediction, but the proficiency did not. We interpret results of the Experiment 1 in terms of prediction-by-production theory. Contrary to our hypothesis that L2 learners are more sensitive than HSs to morphosyntactic information in the sentence due to formal instruction, we did not find any evidence of morphosyntactic prediction in either of the bilingual groups. The findings of the Experiment 2 are consistent with HL theories of dominant language transfer as well as good-enough parsing hypothesis of bilingual language processing. Taken together, the results of the three empirical studies show that HSs of Russian, regardless of their proficiency level, often experience the same difficulties in reading as L2 learners and young children: Their eye movements reflect poor decoding skill, reduced lexical access and difficulties with morphosyntactic information integration and prediction. We conclude that HL status alone does not predict an advantage of HSs over L2 learners in reading fluency. Their proficiency, however, determines the location of HSs on a ‘continuum’ of reading abilities where low-end resembles L2-like reading fluency, mid-point is equivalent to child-like reading abilities, and the endpoint represents the reading skill of a monolingual speaker. We offer it to future research to explore whether it is possible for HSs to achieve the endpoint of reading fluency continuum

Eye movements in hemianopia and the rehabilitation of hemianopic dyslexia

This thesis is a study of the nature and rehabilitation of the functional impairments in unilateral homonymous hemianopia (HH), with a major focus on hemianopic dyslexia. The reading, visual exploration and line bisection impairments associated with homonymous visual field loss are frequent and well-established clinical phenomena. Yet, it is still unknown whether the reading and visual exploration impairments are caused by the visual field defect or by additional extrastriate injury preventing efficient spontaneous oculomotor adaptation. It is also unclear whether the line bisection impairment directly arises from the visual field defect or its adaptive oculomotor consequences, or whether it indicates an associated visual-spatial deficit that is caused by injury to regions involved in visual-spatial perception (Introduction). Based on a critical review of research into hemianopic dyslexia since its original description in 1881, it is suggested that the visual field defect is a major component of hemianopic dyslexia but possibly not its sole cause (Chapter 1). This assumption was confirmed in six experiments whose purpose was to establish the extent to which the reading, visual exploration and line bisection impairments associated with HH are purely visually elicited. To study the behavioural changes associated with the visual field defect that are not caused by brain injury, a gaze-contingent display paradigm was used to simulate HH in healthy participants. Simulated HH induced the reading and visual exploration impairments of hemianopic patients. However, all participants showed efficient spontaneous oculomotor adaptation to simulated HH which was associated with highly specific and task-dependent improvements in reading and visual exploration (Chapters 2 and 3). Moreover, simulated HH did not induce the main feature of the hemianopic line bisection impairment, i.e., the contralateral line bisection error, albeit it nevertheless impaired line bisection performance (Chapter 4). The final study investigated the basis and specificity of the therapeutic effect of an efficient compensatory oculomotor treatment method for hemianopic dyslexia in patients with unilateral homonymous visual field loss. The results demonstrate that using text-material and, thus, lexical-semantic processes, is not critical to the treatment effect, which was also found to be specific to reading (Chapter 5). The concluding chapter reviews the main findings and suggests that the functional impairments associated with visual field loss may not simply be failures of vision. Although the hemianopic visual field defect is a major component of hemianopic dyslexia and possibly contributes to the visual exploration and line bisection impairments, additional injury to specific extrastriate regions seems to be the critical causative factor. The implications for understanding, assessing and rehabilitating functional impairments in homonymous visual field disorders are discussed. The important future research directions arising from this thesis are also identified and presented (Conclusion)

Reclaiming the periphery: Kinetic perimetry in patients with glaucoma

Static automated perimetry of the central 30˚ is the most often used visual field test in glaucoma patients. Short test durations are achieved by focusing on a central region, which constitutes ~20% of the visual field. However, ignoring the periphery may sacrifice information on how patients are affected functionally. Peripheral vision is important for guiding attention, balance and mobility. An efficient standard automated examination for the peripheral visual field has not been established yet. This thesis aims to lay groundwork for the development of such a test. I introduce a kinetic automated test, which estimates an isopter with three repeated presentations per meridian. I ask whether measuring a peripheral isopter adds information to central visual field test results, investigate retest reliability and evaluate the efficiency of test procedures with repeated presentations through computer simulations. Moreover, I investigate how visual field thresholds obtained with static and kinetic stimuli relate to each other and examine the influence of stimulus sizes III and V on static threshold estimates. I also investigate the relationship between response variability and contrast sensitivity in the peripheral visual field. Based on the results, I suggest using repeated presentations in automated kinetic tests. I demonstrate that data driven computer simulations are useful for the development of efficient automated kinetic perimetry. The frequency-of-seeing results suggest that response variability to static stimuli in the far periphery is lower than suggested by previous data (Henson et al., 2000). This is relevant to future computer simulations of peripheral visual field tests with static automated perimetry. As a future avenue for examining the visual field periphery I propose a combined static kinetic automated visual field test, which combines a peripheral isopter as a region of interest with static stimuli inside this region. In a separate investigation, I examine the influence of visual field damage on reading performance and evaluate the relationship between reading performance and eye movements, using a within-patient between-eye study design in glaucoma patients with asymmetrical visual field loss. Between-eye reading performance was affected by visual field loss and co-occurred with specific eye movement patterns. The within-patient between-eye design appeared to be useful for investigating the relationship between visual field loss and functional disability

Torque #2: The Act of Reading

This book is the result of a 12 month research process, including a residency at Tate Liverpool, an exhibition in London's Furtherfield Gallery, and a symposium and performance event taking place at FACT in Liverpool in 2015. The book is aimed as a popular primer on reading discourse from a range of disciplines, but also as a performative document on what interdisciplinary brings to such discourse. It features new material from several world-leading practitioners from a range of disciplines, including media theorists N. Katherine Hayles and Soenke Zehle, literary theorist Garrett Stewart, political theorists Esther Leslie and Nina Power, the poet Charles Bernstein, artists Tim Etchells and Erica Scourti, and clinical neuroscientist Alex Leff, along with a selection of early career academics. Each of these contributors were chosen according to the prescience of their current work to the questions: what does means to read today? and, how is reading changing as a result of current political and technological conditions? The content for the book was developed with the contributors in a process that included discussion at the symposium and supplementary e-correspondence, resulting in a number of cross disciplinary observations being made by the authors - for example between Garrett Stewart's close readings of literary sonification, and Alex Leff's work on the role of the eye saccade in reading disorders. The book was designed by Mark Simmonds, and has a central insert of yellow pages that features a number of creative submissions, further contributing to the range ways that the book itself can interrogate reading. In an introduction (c. 1500 words) inter and cross-disciplinarity is framed as integral to the approach of the editors, and essential to properly understand the context of reading as itself "hybrid": "recycling ... more innate neuronal networks such as object recognition and memory". In a comment published on the reverse of the book, Professor Steven Connor notes the effectiveness of the book's approach to its subject: "Reading inquisitively over each others' shoulders, the poems, meditations, analyses and experiences in this volume response with audacity and adventure to the challenge of characterising what reading … has been and may yet become" Nathan Jones was research leader on this project, co-editing and co-authoring the introduction with Sam Skinner. He also contributes a 10-page creative-theoretical chapter in the book. The book sold out its edition of 500 copies, and is available freely as PDF and EPUB on the publisher's website. Further public impact and relevance to the project can be seen in the Jones and Skinner's paper "Absorbing Text: Rereading Speed Reading" (APRJA_Machine Research 2016), and contribution to the Transmediale Festival of that year. The material and research partnerships in the book also resulted in an exhibition and new artworks by Jones and Skinner, "Re-learning to Read" (Grundy Art Gallery, 2017). The book and project was supported by a grant from Arts Council England, and by the institutions Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT), Tate Liverpool and Furtherfield Gallery in London

Reading Scanpaths

Research Questions: Our aims are on the one hand to find differences in users’ information behavior reading Wikipedia articles and on the other to evaluate different methods commonly used to compare scanpaths. Approach: We conducted eye-tracking experiments and exported scanpaths from raw data to identify gaze patterns of different user groups, considering the parameters pre- and post-knowledge, learning style and subject of study. Method: We applied string distance measures and cluster analysis to investigate scanpath sequences, fixation times and the distribution of the visual attention. Results: Despite encountering difficulties in comparing scanpaths, there are indications that the users’ knowledge influences their gaze patterns

Ancestral visuo-motor computations in the midbrain underly readers’ oculomotor behavior across spaced and unspaced languages

Modeling eye movements during reading is challenging because it requires identifying principles that generalize across many different font types and print sizes, as well as the world’s countless languages and writing systems. Existing, top-down, models circumvented this challenge by taking letters as input, essentially agreeing that saccades are programmed towards the center of target words regardless of print properties, and that inter-word spacing, which enables fast text segmentation into word(-object)s, is all that matters. However, these assumptions, specific to spaced Western-alphabetic languages, imply that Eastern (ideographic) scripts that lack inter-word spacing are read using less efficient word segmentation and/or different saccade-targeting strategies. Yet, although differences in eye-movement behavior have been reported for Chinese/Japanese readers, most word-based oculomotor patterns generalize across spaced and unspaced languages. Previous work using a Model of Attention in the Superior Colliculus (MASC) showed that illiterate visuo-motor computations generated prototypical word-based eye-movement behavior over French sentences (Vitu et al., 2021). Here we show that the same ancestral visuo-motor computations generalize to Chinese reading. MASC predicts reading scanpaths by first computing the bottom-up saliency over the retina-transformed sentence image and then averaging the visual-saliency map over retinotopically arranged and size-invariant visual and motor neuronal populations in SC space. Its behavior over 120 sentences from the Beijing Sentence Corpus was compared to that observed in 60 Chinese reading the sentences for comprehension (Pan et al., 2021). MASC nearly perfectly reproduced Chinese readers’ forward eye-movement patterns, including their tendency to fixate preferentially the words’ first character rather than towards the words’ center (as in Westerners). MASC additionally revealed that such differences, rather than being attributable to inter-word spacing, simply result from angular print size being two-to-four times larger in Chinese/Japanese studies. Thus, rudimentary midbrain visuo-motor computations broadly explain readers’ oculomotor behavior across languages and print properties