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In the Chinese writing system, there are no interword spaces to mark word boundaries. To understand how Chinese readers conquer this challenge, we constructed an integrated model of word processing and eye-movement control during Chinese reading (CRM). The model contains a word-processing module and an eye-movement control module. The word-processing module perceives new information within the perceptual span around a fixation. The model uses the interactive activation framework (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) to simulate word processing, but some new assumptions were made to address the word segmentation problem in Chinese reading. All the words supported by characters in the perceptual span are activated and they compete for a winner. When one word wins the competition, it is identified and it is simultaneously segmented from text. The eye-movement control module makes the decision regarding when and where to move the eyes using the activation information of word units and character units provided by the word-processing module. The model estimates how many characters can be processed during a fixation, and then makes a saccade to somewhere beyond this point. The model successfully simulated important findings on the relation between word processing and eye-movement control, how Chinese readers choose saccade targets, how Chinese readers segment words with ambiguous boundaries, and how Chinese readers process information with parafoveal vision during Chinese sentence reading. The current model thus provides insights on how Chinese readers address some important challenges, such as word segmentation and saccade-target selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An eye-tracking experiment examined the recognition of novel and lexicalized compound words during sentence reading. The frequency of the head noun in modifier-head compound words was manipulated to tap into the degree of compositional processing. This was done separately for long (12-16 letter) and short (7-9 letters) compound words. Based on the dualroute race model (Pollatsek et al., 2000) and the visual acuity principle (Bertram & Hyönä, 2003), long lexicalized and novel compound words were predicted to be processed via the decomposition route and short lexicalized compound words via the holistic route. Gaze duration and selective regression-path duration demonstrated a constituent frequency effect of similar size for long lexicalized and novel compound words. For short compound words the constituent frequency effect was negligible for lexicalized words but robust for novel words. The results are consistent with the visual acuity principle that assumes long novel compound words to be recognized via the decomposition route and short lexicalized compound words via the holistic route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored whether readers could recognize a word composed of noncontiguous characters (a cross-character word) in Chinese reading. All 3 experiments employed Chinese 4-character strings ABCD, where both AB and CD were 2-character words. In the cross-character word condition, AC was a word but in the control condition, AC was not a word. A character identification task was employed in Experiment 1 and sentence reading tasks were employed in Experiments 2 and 3. In all 3 experiments, an AC word produced inhibition effects. In Experiment 1, an AC word decreased the accuracy of character B identification, but increased the accuracy of character C identification. In Experiments 2 and 3, an AC word slowed reading on CD, indicating that the cross-character words were activated. These results imply that Chinese character encoding leading to word recognition does not proceed in a strictly serial way from left to right, or is strictly constrained by invisible word boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Older drivers are known to look less often for hazards when turning at T-intersections or at four way intersections. The present study is an extension of Romoser and Fisher (2009) and attempts to further analyze the differences in scanning behavior between older and experienced younger drivers in intersections. We evaluated four hypotheses that attempt to explain the older drivers’ failure to properly scan in intersections: difficulty with head movements, decreases in working memory capacity, increased distractibility, and failure to recall specific scanning patterns. To test these hypotheses, older and younger experienced drivers’ point-of-gaze was monitored while they drove a series of simulated intersections with hidden hazards outside of the turning path. Our results suggest that none of these hypotheses can fully explain our finding that older adults are more likely to remain fixated on their intended path of travel and look less than younger drivers towards other areas where likely hazards might materialize. Instead, the results support a complementary hypothesis that at least some of the difficulties older adults have scanning intersections are due to a specific attentional deficit in the older drivers’ ability to inhibit what has become their prepotent goal of monitoring the vehicle’s intended path of travel, thereby causing older drivers to fail to scan hazardous areas outside this intended path of travel. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Older drivers are primarily overinvolved in crashes at intersections, and failure to attend to regions that contain relevant information about potential hazards is a major contributor to this problem. Corroborating this, we have found that older drivers in both controlled scenarios on a driving simulator and somewhat less controlled situations on the road attend to (i.e., fixate) target regions in intersections significantly less frequently than do younger experienced drivers. Moreover, we have developed a training program that substantially improves older drivers’ attention to these regions. Together, these findings indicate that older drivers’ less frequent scanning of regions at intersections from which hazards may emerge may be due to their developing something like an unsafe habit rather than to deteriorating physical or mental capabilities and thus that training may be effective in reducing crashes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nonreading tasks that share some (but not all) of the task demands of reading have often been used to make inferences about how cognition influences when the eyes move during reading. In this article, we use variants of the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading to simulate eye-movement behavior in several of these tasks, including z-string reading, target-word search, and visual search of Landolt Cs arranged in both linear and circular arrays. These simulations demonstrate that a single computational framework is sufficient to simulate eye movements in both reading and nonreading tasks but also suggest that there are task-specific differences in both saccadic targeting (i.e., decisions about where to move the eyes) and the coupling between saccadic programming and the movement of attention (i.e., decisions about when to move the eyes). These findings suggest that some aspects of the eye-mind link are flexible and can be configured in a manner that supports efficient task performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two experiments, we examined whether context information can affect the activity of the nodes at the character level. Chinese readers viewed two Chinese characters; one was intact, but the other (the target) was embedded in a rectangle of visual noise and increased in visibility over time. The two characters constituted a word in one condition but did not in the other condition. The task was to press a button to indicate whether the character in the noise was at the top or bottom of the rectangle. (They did not have to identify the character.) Response times were faster in the word condition than in the nonword condition. Because the 'wordness' of the stimulus was logically irrelevant to judging the location of the target character, the data indicate that processing at the word level can feed back to fairly low-level judgments, such as where a character is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the visual system extrapolate spatial layout of a scene to new viewpoints after a single view? In the present study, we examined this question by investigating the priming of spatial layout across depth rotations of the same scene (Sanocki & Epstein, 1997). Participants had to indicate which of two dots superimposed on objects in the target scene appeared closer to them in space. There was as much priming from a prime with a viewpoint that was 10° different from the test image as from a prime that was identical to the target; however, there was no reliable priming from larger differences in viewpoint. These results suggest that a scene's spatial layout can be extrapolated, but only to a limited extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A boundary change manipulation was implemented within a monomorphemic word (e.g., fountaom as a preview for fountain), where parallel processing should occur given adequate visual acuity, and within an unspaced compound (bathroan as a preview for bathroom), where some serial processing of the constituents is likely. Consistent with that hypothesis, there was no effect of the preview manipulation on fixation time on the 1st constituent of the compound, whereas there was on the corresponding letters of the monomorphemic word. There was also a larger preview disruption on gaze duration on the whole monomorphemic word than on the compound, suggesting more parallel processing within monomorphemic words. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In order to understand how processing occurs within the effective field of vision (i.e. perceptual span) during visual target localization, a gaze-contingent moving mask procedure was used to disrupt parafoveal information pickup along the vertical and the horizontal visual fields. When the mask was present within the horizontal visual field, there was a relative increase in saccade probability along the nearby vertical field, but not along the opposite horizontal field. When the mask was present either above or below fixation, saccades downwards were reduced in magnitude. This pattern of data suggests that parafoveal information selection (indexed by probability of saccade direction) and the extent of spatial parafoveal processing in a given direction (indexed by saccade amplitude) may be controlled by somewhat different mechanisms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Kennedy and Pynte [Kennedy, A., & Pynte, J. (2008). The consequences of violations to reading order: An eye movement analysis. Vision Research, 48, 2309–2320] presented data that they suggested pose problems for models of eye movement control in reading in which words are encoded serially. They focus on situations in which pairs of words are fixated out of order (i.e., the first word is skipped and the second fixated prior to a regression back to the first word). We strongly disagree with their claims and contest their arguments. We argue that their data set was obtained selectively and the events they believe are problematic do not occur frequently during reading. Furthermore, we do not consider that Kennedy and Pynte’s arguments pose serious difficulties for serial models of reading such as E-Z Reader. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Parafoveal preview was examined within and between words in two eye movement experiments. In Experiment 1, unspaced and spaced English compound words were used (e.g., basketball, tennis ball). Prior to fixating the second lexeme, either a correct or a partial parafoveal preview (e.g., ball or badk) was provided using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). There was a larger effect of parafoveal preview on unspaced compound words than on spaced compound words. However, the parafoveal preview effect on spaced compound words was larger than would be predicted on the basis of prior research. Experiment 2 examined whether this large effect was due to spaced compounds forming a larger linguistic unit by pairing spaced compounds with nonlexicalized adjective-noun pairs. There were no significant interactions between item type and parafoveal preview, suggesting that it is the syntactic predictability of the noun that is driving the large preview effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2 experiments, eye movements were examined during searches in which elements were grouped into four 9-item clusters. The target (a red or blue T) was known in advance, and each cluster contained different numbers of target-color elements. Rather than color composition of a cluster invariantly guiding the order of search though clusters, the use of color was determined by the probability that the target would appear in a cluster of a certain color type: When the target was equally likely to be in any cluster containing the target color, fixations were directed to those clusters approximately equally, but when targets were more likely to appear in clusters with more target-color items, those clusters were likely to be fixated sooner. (The target probabilities guided search without explicit instruction.) Once fixated, the time spent within a cluster depended on the number of target-color elements, consistent with a search of only those elements. Thus, between-cluster search was influenced by global target probabilities signaled by amount of color or color ratios, whereas within-cluster search was directly driven by presence of the target color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two experiments, memory was tested for changes in viewpoints in naturalistic scenes. In the key study condition, participants viewed two images of the same scene from viewpoints 40° apart. There were two other study conditions: The two study images were identical or were of different scenes. A test image followed immediately, and participants judged whether it was identical to either of the study images. The scene in the test image was always the same as in a study image and was at least 20° from any study image on different trials. Two models were tested: (1) views stored and retrieved independently and (2) views combined at retrieval. The crucial test of these hypotheses involved a comparison (in the key study condition) of the interpolation condition (the test image was presented between the two study images and 20° from both) and the extrapolation condition (it was 20° from one study image and 60° from the other). Performance in the interpolation condition was far worse than what was predicted by the first model, whereas the second model fit the data quite well. The latter model is parsimonious in that it integrates previous experiences without requiring the integration of the views in memory. We review some of this model's broader implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments compared how relatively long novel prefixed words (e.g., overfarm) and existing prefixed words were processed in reading. The use of novel prefixed words allows one to examine the roles of whole-word access and decompositional processing in the processing of non-novel prefixed words. The two experiments found that, although there was a large cost to novelty (e.g., gaze durations were about 100 ms longer for novel prefixed words), the effect of the frequency of the root morpheme on fixation measures was about the same for novel and non-novel prefixed words for most measures. This finding rules out a (“horse-race”) dual-route model of processing for existing prefixed words in which the whole-word and decompositional route are parallel and independent, as such a model would predict a substantially larger root frequency effect for novel words (where whole-word processes do not exist). The most likely model to explain the processing of prefixed words is a parallel interactive one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments examined the effects in sentence reading of varying the frequency and length of an adjective on (a) fixations on the adjective and (b) fixations on the following noun. The gaze duration on the adjective was longer for low frequency than for high frequency adjectives and longer for long adjectives than for short adjectives. This contrasted with the spillover effects: Gaze durations on the noun were longer when adjectives were low frequency but were actually shorter when the adjectives were long. The latter effect, which seems anomalous, can be explained by three mechanisms: (a) Fixations on the noun are less optimal after short adjectives because of less optimal targeting; (b) shorter adjectives are more difficult to process because they have more neighbors; and (c) prior fixations before skips are less advantageous places to extract parafoveal information. The viability of these hypotheses as explanations of this reverse length effect on the noun was examined in simulations using an updated version of the E-Z Reader model (A. Pollatsek, K. Reichle, & E. D. Rayner, 2006c; E. D. Reichle, A. Pollatsek, D. L. Fisher, & K. Rayner, 1998). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequencies of three consecutive content words were simultaneously varied in the first sentence of a two-sentence passage. Various eye movement measures of first-pass processing (first-fixation duration, gaze duration, and go-past time) all revealed frequency effects for all three words. The size of the effect did not differ significantly across the three words on either first-fixation duration or gaze duration, but it increased markedly for go-past time from the first to the second word, possibly indicating an accumulation of the difficulty of processing. In addition, there was a delayed effect of the frequency manipulation: For the sentences with three low-frequency words, processing at the beginning of the next (second) sentence was lengthened. (The beginning of the second sentence was always at least four words from the last of the frequency-manipulated words.) These findings indicate that word frequency has effects beyond initial lexical access in reading. A list of the experimental items and supplemental analyses may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

R. Kliegl, A. Nuthmann, and R. Engbert (2006) 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A. W. Inhoff, R. Radach, and B. Eiter (2006) argue that the current version of the E-Z Reader model (A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, & K. Rayner, 2006b) cannot explain 2 key findings in their data, and as a result, the assumption of words being attended to 1 at a time is likely to be false. In this rejoinder, the authors argue that the E-Z Reader model can easily explain the 1st of the 2 phenomena and that the 2nd phenomenon is likely to be at least partially an artifact of changing displays during fixations. The authors also argue that their assumptions about attention shifting are not contrary to the attention literature and that the assumption that A. W. Inhoff et al. deem to be unrealistic (i.e., instantaneous shifting of attention) is easily modified within the architecture of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach (2005) reported the results of 2 experiments that they claimed were problematic for serial attention models of eye movements in reading (such as the E-Z Reader model). In this reply, the authors demonstrate via argumentation and simulations that their data pose no serious problem for the E-Z Reader model or serial attention models in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Newly licensed drivers are disproportionally involved in fatal crashes, and there is evidence that failure to attend to potentially relevant information is a major contributor to this problem. Corroborating this, in controlled scenarios on a driving simulator, we have found that younger drivers attend to (i.e., fixate) target regions in the virtual world that contain information about potential risks much less frequently than do more experienced drivers. We have developed a PC-based training program that substantially improves younger drivers' attention to these regions in the driving simulator and have recently replicated these training results on the road in a real driving situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Evaluation of the effects of a PC-based training program on risk perception in a driving simulator.Background: Novice drivers have a fatality rate some eight times higher than that of the most experienced group of drivers, primarily because of the novice driver's inability to predict ahead of time the risks that will appear in the roadway. Current driver education programs, at least those in the United States, do not emphasize the teaching of risk awareness skills to novice drivers.Method: A PC-based risk awareness and perception training program was developed and evaluated. The training involved using plan (top-down) views of 10 risky scenarios that helped novice drivers identify where potential risks were located and what information should be attended. Both the 24 trained novice drivers and 24 untrained novice drivers were evaluated on an advanced driving simulator. The eye movements of both groups of drivers were measured. The evaluation on the driving simulator included both scenarios used in the training and others not used in training.Results: The set of trained novice drivers were almost twice as likely as untrained drivers to fixate appropriately either on the regions where potential risks might appear or on signs that warned of potentially risky situations ahead, both for the scenarios they had encountered in training and for novel scenarios.Application: The PC training program developed, which is portable and can be widely used, has great promise in improving risk perception for novice drivers on the road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments were performed to investigate the roles of root morpheme frequency and word frequency in the encoding of prefixed words in sentence context. Two alternative words, which were equated on other indices but differed with respect to either root morpheme frequency or word frequency, were embedded in the same sentence frame. In Experiment 1, there was a significant root morpheme frequency effect on gaze duration but only a marginal word frequency effect. Post hoc analyses indicated that word length influenced both effects, with word frequency effects predominating for shorter words and root morpheme effects predominating for longer words. In Experiment 2, word length was also manipulated. There was a significant root frequency effect for longer prefixed words and a significant word frequency effect for shorter prefixed words. The results were best explained by a dual-route model (with competing whole-word access and compositional routes), in which increasing word length inhibited the whole-word process, relative to the compositional route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The two core assumptions of the E–Z Reader model of eye-movement control during reading are that: (1) a preliminary stage of lexical access (i.e., the familiarity check) triggers the initiation of a saccadic program to move the eyes from one word to the next; and (2) attention is allocated serially, to one word at a time. This paper provides an overview of the model, some of the research that motivated its assumptions, and the various reading-related phenomena that the model can account for. This paper also summarizes how the model has been and is currently being used to guide empirical research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper is simultaneously a test and refinement of the E-Z Reader model and an exploration of the interrelationship between visual and language processing and eye-movements in reading. Our modeling indicates that the assumption that words in text are processed serially by skilled readers is a viable and attractive hypothesis, as it accounts not only for “normal” reading data, but also for the pattern of decrements that occur when text is withheld from view during certain periods of time, such as in the boundary paradigm and the disappearing text paradigm. Our analyses also indicate (a) that lexical processing during reading is essentially continuous and (b) that the trigger for eye movements has to be a different (and prior) event to the trigger for shifts of covert spatial attention. In addition, the parameter values in our model are in accordance with what is known about such processes and should be taken as serious hypotheses for how long these processes last. Although a parallel model may be able to duplicate the predictions of the E-Z Reader model, we think that it is likely to be far less parsimonious and not nearly as good a heuristic device for using eye movements to understand language processing in reading. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Three experiments examined whether the semantic transparency of a long Finnish compound word has any influence on how the compound word is encoded in reading. The frequency of the first constituent (as a separate word) was manipulated, while matching for the frequencies of the compound word and of the second constituent. The effect of this frequency manipulation on encoding time served as a 'marker' that the compound word was processed, at least in part, componentially. In Experiment 1, each high-frequency transparent compound was paired with a low-frequency transparent compound, and each high-frequency opaque compound was paired with a low-frequency opaque compound. A sentence frame was created for each pair that was identical up to the word following the target word. In Experiments 2 and 3, the matching was done between transparent and opaque word pairs. In addition, Experiment 3 had a display change manipulation in which most of the second constituent was not visible until it was fixated. Readers' eye fixation patterns on and immediately after the target word were examined. Reliable first constituent frequency effects were observed in the fixation duration measures on the target word, but there were no effects of transparency. In addition, a comparison of the display change condition to the standard condition indicated that the constituents of the compound word were processed sequentially. It thus appears that the identification of both transparent and opaque long compound words takes place, at least in part, by accessing the constituent lexemes and does not rely on constructing the meaning from the components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This eye movement study investigated the use of two types of segmentation cues in processing long Finnish compounds. The cues were related to the vowel quality properties of the constituents and properties of the consonant starting the second constituent. In Finnish, front vowels never appear with back vowels in a lexeme, but different quality vowels can appear in different constituents in compounds. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that compounds with different vowel quality constituents are processed faster than those with same vowel quality constituents, but only if the first constituent is long. This indicates that the use of segmentation cues in processing long compounds depends on the ease of encoding the first constituent. Experiment 3 established that (a) the effect does not depend on the crucial vowels being adjacent and (b) processing is affected by the type of consonant beginning the second constituent (i.e., whether or not it could end a first constituent). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issues the commentators have raised and which we address, include: the debate over how attention is allocated during reading; our distinction between early and late stages of lexical processing; our assumptions about saccadic programming; the determinants of skipping and refixations; and the role that higher- level linguistic processing may play in influencing eye movements during reading. In addition, we provide a discussion of model development and principles for evaluating and comparing models. Although we acknowledge that E-Z Reader is incomplete, we maintain that it provides a good framework for systematically trying to understand how the cognitive, perceptual, and motor systems influence the eyes during reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of data as a mixture of signal and noise is perhaps the most fundamental concept in statistics. Research suggests, however, that current instruction is not helping students to develop this idea, and that though many students know, for example, how to compute means or medians, they do not know how to apply or interpret them. Part of the problem may be that the interpretations we often use to introduce data summaries, including viewing averages as typical scores or fair shares, provide a poor conceptual basis for using them to represent the entire group for purposes such as comparing one group to another. To explore the challenges of learning to think about data as signal and noise, we examine the "signal/noise" metaphor in the context of three different statistical processes: repeated measures, measuring individuals, and dichotomous events. On the basis of this analysis, we make several recommendations about research and instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The encoding of suffixed words (both derivations and inflections) was assessed by monitoring eye movements during reading English sentences in which the target words were embedded. The target words were derived words in Experiment 1 and inflected words in Experiment 2. In each experiment, whole-word frequency and root frequency were independently manipulated, where pairs of words differing on one variable and matched on the other were inserted into the same sentence frame. For derived words, root morpheme frequency affected processing earlier than did whole-word frequency: it affected the duration of the first fixation, whereas whole-word frequency affected processing only beginning on the second fixation. In contrast, for (the regular) inflected words, word frequency had significant effects beginning on the first fixation, whereas root frequency had significant effects beginning with the first fixation duration only for plural nouns and not for inflected verbs. Subsequent regression analyses on the inflected words suggested that the usual part of speech for the stem may play a significant role in processing. The data thus indicate that in normal reading, both the whole word as a unit and the root morpheme play a significant role in processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observes eye movements to uncover compositional effects in processing Finnish compounds. Efficacy of using eye movements to study morphemic decomposition in natural reading; Efficacy of whole word processes of preventing the processes of morphemic decomposition from controlling the pattern of eye movements; Interaction between compositional and direct-access processes.

Examines the relationship between phonological and semantic code and its role in Chinese character identification. Involvement of lexical and sublexical phonological codes of Chinese characters in character identification; Extraction of semantic information from parafoveal views; Use of orthographic codes in integrating information across saccades.

Examines the extraction of information to the left of the fixated word in reading. Use of two eye-contingent display change techniques; Retention of readers' attention to a word after skipping or fixating on the next word; Extent of perceptual span; Factors that affect the fixation time on the base word.

Assesses the effect of neighborhood size on word identification. Definition of neighborhood size; Effect on lexical decision and reading; Inhibitory effect of increased number of higher frequency neighbors on word identification; Weak facilitative effect of increased number of lower frequency neighbors.

Explores the nature of the sound codes accessed by visual language determined by four experiments. Methodology used to judge the sound codes; Examination of the types of sound codes; Results obtained from the study.

Presents two experiments which examined whether or not readers obtain useful information from below the currently fixated line. Testing of 50 students from the University of Toronto; Moving window technique variant; Condition causing reading to slow down; Availability of information making word search more efficient; Little visual information extracted below line of text fixated.

Explores the role of morphemic processing in reading in experiments where participants read sentences as their eye movements were monitored. Length of the initial morpheme using Finnish compound words as target words; Effect of frequency of the initial morpheme on the gaze duration; Effects unlikely to stem from orthographic factors.

Focuses on two sets of words which were constructed to examine neighborhood frequency effects on the identification of a printed word in reading and lexical decision. In-depth look at neighborhood frequency effects in reading; Role competing lexical units play in word recognition; Effect of neighborhood and models of visual word recognition.

Reports on a study which investigated the role played by assembled phonology in visual word recognition. Details on words which were semantically related to target words; Indepth look at phonological coding; Methodology used to conduct the study; Results of the study.

Presents information on phonological codes and eye movements in reading. Suggestion from studies, which indicate that phonological codes, are used to arrive at the meaning of printed words; Background information on the participants of the experiments; Discussion on fixation time on target words; Presentation of constraint manipulation.

Stresses that counterbalanced designs are ubiquitous in cognitive psychology. Lack of research on this subject; Illustration of the possible costs of ignoring counterbalancing; Recommendation for more appropriate analyses which apply to both reliability of effects over subjects and reliability of effects over stimulus items.

Examines the performance of subjects in same-different judgments for which information was logically irrelevant. Description of the experiments used to study judgment behavior of subjects; Amodal order of information as the basis of same-different judgments; Proposed model of the implicated order schema.

Reading printed music is a skill that is acquired by a large number of people and is arguably as complex as reading text. However, it is more difficult to study because there is no music-reading task that is really the same as reading text silently for meaning. That is, when people read musical scores silently, they do so for a large variety of reasons. Moreover, if one tested for a music reader's comprehension of the music in a manner analogous to testing for comprehension of text, the musician would undoubtedly need to go over the passage of music several times and consciously make mental notes in order to be able to demonstrate much understanding of what had been seen. As a result, the musical analogue of reading aloud, sight-reading, seems more amenable to study and has been the task of choice when examining how people read music.

Reviews research on eye movements and scene perception. Basic facts about eye movements; Span of effective vision; Integration of information across saccades; Effects of context on object identification.

Investigates students' reasoning about probability. Possibility that correct answers to probabilistic questions may be based on nonnormative reasoning; Within-subject inconsistencies in reasoning; Use of the four-heads problem and the head-tail sequence problem; Reasoning from different perspectives; Application of conceptual frameworks and maximlike beliefs.

Twenty-two university students who did not initially know the quantitative rule for predicting whether a configuration of weights placed on a balance beam would cause the beam to balance, tip left, or tip right were asked to induce the rule in a training procedure adapted from Siegler (1976). For each of a series of balance beam problems, subjects predicted the action of the beam and explained how they arrived at their prediction. Protocols revealed that although all subjects realized on early on that both weight and distance were relevant to their predictions, they used a variety of heuristics prior to inducing the correct quantitative rule. These heuristics included instance-based reasoning, qualitative estimation of distance, and the use of quantitative rules of limited generality. The common use of instance-based reasoning suggests that learning to understand the balance beam cannot be described completely in terms of a simple rule acquisition theory. Also, the variability in the use of heuristics across subjects suggests that no simple theory that depicts subjects as linearly progressing through a hierarchy of levels can be adequately describe the development of balance understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions the role of covert attention in normal visual scanning. Important functions of covert attention; Necessity to include the concept of covert attention when discussing reading; Description of E-Z Reader, a computational model of reading developed to give account of how the eyes move through text.

We employed a boundary paradigm to investigate how Chinese two-character compounds (i.e., compound words) are processed during reading. The first character of the compound was an ambiguous morpheme that had a dominant and subordinate meaning. In Experiment 1, there were three previews of the second character: identical to the target character; the preview provided subordinate biasing information (the subordinate condition); the preview provided dominant biasing information (the dominant condition). An invisible boundary was inserted between the two characters. We found that gaze durations and go-past times on the compounds were longer in the subordinate condition than those in the dominant or identical conditions. In Experiment 2, the semantic similarity between target and preview words in the dominant condition was manipulated to determine whether the differences in fixation durations in Experiment 1 resulted from the semantic similarity between the preview and target words. There were significant fixation duration differences on the target word between the dominant and subordinate conditions only when the preview and target words were semantically related. This finding indicated that the whole-word meaning plays an important role in processing Chinese compounds and that the whole-word access route is the principal processing route in reading two-character compounds in Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented concerning a photograph previously published in the magazine “Life” that was reprinted on the cover of the April 23, 2010 issue of “Science.”

In Chinese, as there are no spaces between words to mark word boundaries, readers usually do not target their eyes to the centre of the word as readers of English do. Previous studies showed that the distribution of the initial landing positions on a word (the PVL curve) peaked at the beginning of a word when there was more than one fixation; but peaked at the centre of a word if there was only one fixation on the word. Based on this phenomenon, it was argued that Chinese readers move their eyes to the beginning of a word if they cannot correctly segment words in the parafovea, but move to the centre of a word if they can. In the present study, we implemented a natural sentence reading task in Experiment 1 and a shuffled-character reading task in Experiment 2 to test whether the above PVL phenomenon was in fact caused by word segmentation. In both experiments, we found that the different PVL patterns in multiple- and single-fixation cases occurred not only for a 3-character word region but also for a 3-character nonword region. These results suggest that the different PVL curves in multiple- and single-fixation cases are likely to be due to a statistical artefact instead of parafoveal word segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]