Effects of word predictability on eye movements during Arabic reading

Contextual predictability influences both the probability and duration of eye fixations on words when reading Latinate alphabetic scripts like English and German. However, it is unknown whether word predictability influences eye movements in reading similarly for Semitic languages like Arabic, which are alphabetic languages with very different visual and linguistic characteristics. Such knowledge is nevertheless important for establishing the generality of mechanisms of eye-movement control across different alphabetic writing systems. Accordingly, we investigated word predictability effects in Arabic in two eye-movement experiments. Both produced shorter fixation times for words with high compared to low predictability, consistent with previous findings. Predictability did not influence skipping probabilities for (four- to eight-letter) words of varying length and morphological complexity (Experiment 1). However, it did for short (three- to four-letter) words with simpler structures (Experiment 2). We suggest that word-skipping is reduced, and affected less by contextual predictability, in Arabic compared to Latinate alphabetic reading, because of specific orthographic and morphological characteristics of the Arabic script

Effects of Normative Aging on Eye Movements during Reading

Substantial progress has been made in understanding the mostly detrimental effects of normative aging on eye movements during reading. This article provides a review of research on aging effects on eye movements during reading for different writing systems (i.e., alphabetic systems like English compared to non-alphabetic systems like Chinese), focused on appraising the importance of visual and cognitive factors, considering key methodological issues, and identifying vital questions that need to be addressed and topics for further investigation

Effects of reading strategies on reading behaviour and comprehension: implications for teaching study skills

We summarised findings of our ESRC funded project “Revealing the Implications of Reading Strategy for Reading Behaviour and Comprehension”. The research employed eye-tracking methods, such that measures of when and where the eyes move reveal what is processed when during reading and skimming. Experiments that include manipulations of text characteristics help reveal how reading strategies affect comprehension of text. Our findings have important implications for teaching of reading strategy study skills. We are excited to engage those working in learning development to explore the implications of our findings for study skills teaching and to inform our programme of research

Adult Age Differences in Parafoveal Preview Effects during Reading: Evidence from Chinese

We investigated parafoveal processing by 44 young (18-30 years) and 44 older (65+ years) Chinese readers using eye movement measures. Participants read sentences which included an invisible boundary after a two-character word (N) and before two one-character words (N+1, N+2). Before a reader’s gaze crossed the boundary, N+1 and N+2 were shown normally or masked (i.e., as valid/invalid previews), after which they reverted to normal. Young adults obtained preview benefits (a processing advantage for valid over invalid previews) for both words. However, older adults obtained N+2 preview benefits only when N+1 was valid, suggesting their parafoveal processing is more limited

Ten simple rules for implementing open and reproducible research practices after attending a training course

Open, reproducible, and replicable research practices are a fundamental part of science. Training is often organized on a grassroots level, offered by early career researchers, for early career researchers. Buffet style courses that cover many topics can inspire participants to try new things; however, they can also be overwhelming. Participants who want to implement new practices may not know where to start once they return to their research team. We describe ten simple rules to guide participants of relevant training courses in implementing robust research practices in their own projects, once they return to their research group. This includes (1) prioritizing and planning which practices to implement, which involves obtaining support and convincing others involved in the research project of the added value of implementing new practices; (2) managing problems that arise during implementation; and (3) making reproducible research and open science practices an integral part of a future research career. We also outline strategies that course organizers can use to prepare participants for implementation and support them during this process

Ageing and the Misperception of Words: Evidence from Eye Movements during Reading.

Research with lexical neighbours (words that differ by a single letter while the number and order of letters is preserved) indicates that readers frequently misperceive a word as its higher frequency neighbour (HFN) even during normal reading (Slattery, 2009). But how this lexical influence on word identification changes across the adult lifespan is largely unknown, although slower lexical processing and reduced visual abilities in later adulthood may lead to an increased incidence of word misperception errors. In particular, older adults may be more likely than younger adults to misidentify a word as its HFN, especially when the HFN is congruent with prior sentence context, although this has not been investigated. Accordingly, to address this issue, young and older adults read sentences containing target words with and without an HFN, where the HFN was either congruent with prior sentence context or not. Consistent with previous findings for young adults, eye movements were disrupted more for words with than without an HFN, especially when the HFN was congruent with prior context. Crucially, however, there was no indication of an adult age difference in this word misperception effect. We discuss these findings in relation to the nature of misperception effects in older age

Aging Effects on the Visual Span for Alphabetic Stimuli

Background: The visual span (i.e., an estimate of the number of letters that can be recognized reliably on a single glance) is widely considered to impose an important sensory limitation on reading speed. With the present research, we investigated adult age differences in the visual span for alphabetic stimuli (i.e., Latin alphabetic letters), as aging effects on span size may make an important contribution to slower reading speeds in older adulthood. Method: A trigram task, in which sets of three letters were displayed randomly at specified locations to the right and left of a central fixation point, was used to estimate the size of the visual span for young (18-30 years) and older (65+years) adults while an eye tracker was used to ensure accurate central fixation during stimulus presentation. Participants also completed tests of visual acuity and visual crowding. Results: There were clear age differences in the size of the visual span. The older adults produced visual spans which were on average 1.2 letters smaller than the spans of young adults. However, both young and older adults produced spans smaller than those previously reported. In addition, span size correlated with measures of both visual acuity and measures of visual crowding. Conclusion: The findings show that the size of the visual span is smaller for older compared to young adults. The age-related reduction in span size is relatively small but may make a significant contribution to reduced parafoveal processing during natural reading so may play a role in the greater difficulty experienced by older adult readers. Moreover, these results highlight the importance of carefully controlling fixation location in visual span experiments

The influence of foveal load on parafoveal processing of <i>N</i> + 2 during Chinese reading

According to the foveal load hypothesis, parafoveal processing is influenced by the difficulty of current foveal processing. It remains unclear whether foveal load may affect the extent of parafoveal processing. This is an important consideration given the evidence that Chinese readers may frequently pre-process word N + 2 when N + 1 is one character. Accordingly, the current study manipulated word frequency to explore the influence of foveal load on parafoveal processing of N + 2 using a 2 (foveal load: high-frequency, low-frequency) × 2 (preview condition: identical preview, pseudo-character preview) within-subject design. Main effects of foveal load were found for the foveal word N, with longer fixations for low- than for high-frequency words and a main effect of preview was also found for N + 2, with longer fixations for pseudo-character preview compared to identical preview. Crucially, there was no interaction between foveal load and preview condition, indicating that parafoveal processing of word N + 2 is not influenced by foveal load during natural Chinese reading.</p

Effects of aging, word frequency and text stimulus quality on reading across the adult lifespan: Evidence from eye movements

Reductions in stimulus quality may disrupt the reading performance of older adults more compared to young adults due to sensory declines that begin early in middle age. However, few studies have investigated adult age differences in the effects of stimulus quality on reading, and none have examined how this affects lexical processing and eye movement control. Accordingly, we report two experiments that examine the effects of reduced stimulus quality on the eye movements of young (18-24 years), middle-aged (41-51 years) and older (65+ years) adult readers. In Experiment 1, participants read sentences which contained a high or low frequency critical word and that were presented normally or with contrast reduced so that words appeared faint. Experiment 2 further investigated the effects of reduced stimulus quality using a gaze-contingent technique to present upcoming text normally or with contrast reduced. Typical patterns of age-related reading difficulty (e.g., slower reading, more regressions) were observed in both experiments. In addition, eye movements were disrupted more for older than younger adults when all text (Experiment 1) or just upcoming text (Experiment 2) appeared faint. Moreover, there was an interaction between stimulus quality and word frequency (Experiment 1), such that readers fixated faint lower frequency words for disproportionately longer. Crucially, this effect was similar across all age groups. Thus, while older readers suffer more from reduced stimulus quality, this additional difficulty primarily affects their visual processing of text. These findings have important implications for understanding the role of stimulus quality on reading behavior across the lifespan

Eye movements during reading and topic scanning: Effects of word frequency

The study examines the nature of eye movement control and word recognition during scanning for a specific topic, compared to reading for comprehension. Experimental trials included a manipulation of word frequency: the critical word was frequent (and orthographically familiar) or infrequent (two conditions: orthographically familiar, orthographically unfamiliar). First-pass reading times showed effects of word frequency for both reading and scanning, with no interactions between word characteristics and task. Therefore, in contrast to the task of searching for a single specific word (Rayner & Fischer, 1996), there are immediate and localised influences of lexical processing when scanning for a specific topic, indicating that early word recognition processes are similar during reading and topic scanning. In contrast, there were interactions for later measures, with larger effects of word frequency during reading than scanning, indicating that reading goals can modulate later processes such as the integration of words into sentence context. Additional analyses of the distribution of first-pass single fixation durations indicate that first-pass fixations of all durations were shortened during scanning compared to reading, and reading for comprehension produced a larger subset of longer first-pass fixations compared to scanning. Implications for the nature of word recognition and eye movement control are discussed