Beyond isolated word recognition

In this commentary we concur with Frost’s view of the centrality of universal principles in models of word identification. However, we argue that other processes in sentence comprehension also fundamentally constrain the nature of written word identification. Furthermore, these processes appear to be universal. We, therefore, argue that universality in word identification should not be considered in isolation, but instead in the context of other linguistic processes that occur during normal reading

Investigating eye movement acquisition and analysis technologies as a causal factor in differential prevalence of crossed and uncrossed fixation disparity during reading and dot scanning

Previous studies examining binocular coordination during reading have reported conflicting results in terms of the nature of disparity (e.g. Kliegl, Nuthmann, &amp; Engbert (Journal of Experimental Psychology General 135:12-35, 2006); Liversedge, White, Findlay, &amp; Rayner (Vision Research 46:2363-2374, 2006). One potential cause of this inconsistency is differences in acquisition devices and associated analysis technologies. We tested this by directly comparing binocular eye movement recordings made using SR Research EyeLink 1000 and the Fourward Technologies Inc. DPI binocular eye-tracking systems. Participants read sentences or scanned horizontal rows of dot strings; for each participant, half the data were recorded with the EyeLink, and the other half with the DPIs. The viewing conditions in both testing laboratories were set to be very similar. Monocular calibrations were used. The majority of fixations recorded using either system were aligned, although data from the EyeLink system showed greater disparity magnitudes. Critically, for unaligned fixations, the data from both systems showed a majority of uncrossed fixations. These results suggest that variability in previous reports of binocular fixation alignment is attributable to the specific viewing conditions associated with a particular experiment (variables such as luminance and viewing distance), rather than acquisition and analysis software and hardware.<br/

Using a dichoptic moving window presentation technique to investigate binocular advantages during reading

Reading comes with a clear binocular advantage, expressed in shorter fixation times and fewer regressions in binocular relative to monocular visual presentations. Little is known, however, about whether the cost associated with monocular viewing derives primarily from the encoding of foveal information or in obtaining a preview benefit from upcoming parafoveal text. In the present sentence reading eye tracking experiment, the authors used a novel dichoptic binocular gaze-contingent moving window technique to selectively manipulate the amount of text made available to the reader both binocularly and monocularly in the fovea and parafovea on a fixation-by-fixation basis. This technique allowed the authors to quantify disruption to reading caused by prevention of binocular fusion during direct fixation of words and parafoveal preprocessing of upcoming text. Sentences were presented (a) binocularly; (b) monocularly; (c) with monocular text to the left of fixation; (d) with monocular text to the right of fixation; or (e) with all words other than the fixated word presented binocularly. A robust binocular advantage occurred for average fixation duration and regressions. Also, while there was a limited cost associated with monocular foveal processing, the restriction of parafoveal processing to monocular information was particularly disruptive. The findings demonstrate the critical importance of a unified binocular input for the efficient preprocessing text to the right of fixation

The role of phonology in lexical access in teenagers with a history of dyslexia

We examined phonological recoding during silent sentence reading in teenagers with a history of dyslexia and their typically developing peers. Two experiments are reported in which participants’ eye movements were recorded as they read sentences containing correctly spelled words (e.g., church), pseudohomophones (e.g., cherch), and spelling controls (e.g., charch). In Experiment 1 we examined foveal processing of the target word/nonword stimuli, and in Experiment 2 we examined parafoveal pre-processing. There were four participant groups–older teenagers with a history of dyslexia, older typically developing teenagers who were matched for age, younger typically developing teenagers who were matched for reading level, and younger teenagers with a history of dyslexia. All four participant groups showed a pseudohomophone advantage, both from foveal processing and parafoveal pre-processing, indicating that teenagers with a history of dyslexia engage in phonological recoding for lexical identification during silent sentence reading in a comparable manner to their typically developing peers

The influence of children’s reading ability on initial letter position encoding during a reading-like task

Previous studies exploring the cost of reading sentences with words that have two transposed letters in adults showed that initial letter transpositions caused the most disruption to reading, indicating the important role that initial-letters play in lexical identification (e.g., Rayner et al., 2006). Regarding children, it is not clear whether differences in reading ability would affect how they encode letter position information as they attempt to identify misspelled words in a reading-like task. The aim of this experiment was to explore how initial-letter position information is encoded by children compared to adults when reading misspelled words, containing transpositions, during a reading-like task. Four different conditions were used: control (words were correctly spelled), TL12 (letters in first and second positions were transposed), TL13 (letters in first and third positions were transposed) and TL23 (letters in second and third positions were transposed). Results showed that TL13 condition caused the most disruption, while TL23 caused the least disruption to reading of misspelled words. Whilst disruption for the TL13 condition was quite rapid in adults, the immediacy of disruption was less so for the TL23 and TL12 conditions. For children, effects of transposition also occurred quite rapidly but were longer lasting. The time course was particularly extended for the less skilled relative to the more skilled child readers. This pattern of effects suggests that both adults and children with higher, relative to lower, reading ability encode internal letter position information more flexibly to identify misspelled words, with transposed letters, during a reading-like task

Binocular coordination: reading stereoscopic sentences in depth

The present study employs a stereoscopic manipulation to present sentences in three dimensions to subjects as they read for comprehension. Subjects read sentences with (a) no depth cues, (b) a monocular depth cue that implied the sentence loomed out of the screen (i.e., increasing retinal size), (c) congruent monocular and binocular (retinal disparity) depth cues (i.e., both implied the sentence loomed out of the screen) and (d) incongruent monocular and binocular depth cues (i.e., the monocular cue implied the sentence loomed out of the screen and the binocular cue implied it receded behind the screen). Reading efficiency was mostly unaffected, suggesting that reading in three dimensions is similar to reading in two dimensions. Importantly, fixation disparity was driven by retinal disparity; fixations were significantly more crossed as readers progressed through the sentence in the congruent condition and significantly more uncrossed in the incongruent condition. We conclude that disparity depth cues are used on-line to drive binocular coordination during reading.<br/

Reading sentences of words wtih rotated letters: An eye movement study

Participants’ eye movements were measured as they read sentences in which individual letters within words were rotated. Both the consistency of direction and the magnitude of rotation were manipulated (letters rotated all in the same direction, or alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise; by 30 or 60 degrees). Each sentence included a target word that was manipulated for frequency of occurrence. Our objectives were threefold: To quantify how change in the visual presentation of individual letters disrupted word identification, and whether disruption was consistent with systematic change in visual presentation; to determine whether inconsistent letter transformation caused more disruption than consistent letter transformation; to determine whether such effects were comparable for words that were high and low frequency to explore the extent to which they were visually or linguistically mediated. We found that disruption to reading was greater as the magnitude of letter rotation increased, although even small rotations impacted processing. The data also showed that alternating letter rotations were significantly more disruptive than consistent rotations; this result is consistent with models of lexical identification in which encoding occurs over units of more than one adjacent letter. These rotation manipulations also showed significant interactions with word frequency on the target word: gaze durations and total fixation duration times increased disproportionately for low frequency words when they were presented at more extreme rotations. These data provide a first step towards quantifying the relative contribution of the spatial relationships between individual letters to word recognition and eye movement control in reading

Parafoveal Pre-processing in Children reading English: The Importance of External Letters

Although previous research has demonstrated that for adults external letters of words are more important than internal letters for lexical processing during reading, no comparable research has been conducted with children. This experiment explored, using the boundary paradigm during silent sentence reading, whether parafoveal pre-processing in English is more affected by the manipulation of external letters or internal letters, and whether this differs between skilled adult and beginner child readers. Six previews were generated: identity (e.g., monkey); external letter manipulations where either the beginning three letters of the word were substituted (e.g., rackey) or the last three letters of the word were substituted (e.g., monhig); internal letter manipulations; e.g., machey, mochiy); and an unrelated control condition (e.g., rachig). Results indicate that both adults and children undertook pre-processing of words in their entirety in the parafovea, and that the manipulation of external letters in preview was more harmful to participants’ parafoveal pre-processing than internal letters. The data also suggests developmental change in the time course of pre-processing, with children’s pre-processing delayed compared to adults’. These results not only provide further evidence for the importance of external letters to parafoveal processing and lexical identification for adults, but also demonstrate that such findings can be extended to children

The impact of universal newborn hearing screening on long-term literacy outcomes: a prospective cohort study

Objective: To determine whether the benefits of universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) seen at age 8?years persist through the second decade.Design: Prospective cohort study of a population sample of children with permanent childhood hearing impairment (PCHI) followed up for 17?years since birth in periods with (or without) UNHS.Setting: Birth cohort of 100?000 in southern England.Participants: 114 teenagers aged 13-19?years, 76 with PCHI and 38 with normal hearing. All had previously their reading assessed aged 6-10?years.Interventions: Birth in periods with and without UNHS; confirmation of PCHI before and after age 9?months.Main outcome measure: Reading comprehension ability. Regression modelling took account of severity of hearing loss, non-verbal ability, maternal education and main language.Results: Confirmation of PCHI by age 9?months was associated with significantly higher mean z-scores for reading comprehension (adjusted mean difference 1.17, 95% CI 0.36 to 1.97) although birth during periods with UNHS was not (adjusted mean difference 0.15, 95% CI -0.75 to 1.06). The gap between the reading comprehension z-scores of teenagers with early compared with late confirmed PCHI had widened at an adjusted mean rate of 0.06 per year (95% CI -0.02 to 0.13) during the 9.2-year mean interval since the previous assessment.Conclusions: The benefit to reading comprehension of confirmation of PCHI by age 9?months increases during the teenage years. This strengthens the case for UNHS programmes that lead to early confirmation of permanent hearing loss

Reading Text Increases Binocular Disparity in Dyslexic Children

Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite being matched on IQ, socio-economic background, and educational opportunities. The neurological and cognitive basis of dyslexia remains a highly debated topic. Proponents of the magnocellular theory, which postulates abnormalities in the M-stream of the visual pathway cause developmental dyslexia, claim that children with dyslexia have deficient binocular coordination, and this is the underlying cause of developmental dyslexia. We measured binocular coordination during reading and a non-linguistic scanning task in three participant groups: adults, typically developing children, and children with dyslexia. A significant increase in fixation disparity was observed for dyslexic children solely when reading. Our study casts serious doubts on the claims of the magnocellular theory. The exclusivity of increased fixation disparity in dyslexics during reading might be a result of the allocation of inadequate attentional and/or cognitive resources to the reading process, or suboptimal linguistic processing per se