Recent studies of eye movements in reading and other information processing tasks, such as music reading, typing, visual search, and scene perception, are reviewed. The major emphasis of the review is on reading as a specific example of cognitive processing. Basic topics discussed with respect to reading are (a) the characteristics of eye movements, (b) the perceptual span, (c) integration of information across saccades, (d) eye movement control, and (e) individual differences (including dyslexia). Similar topics are discussed with respect to the other tasks examined. The basic theme of the review is that eye movement data reflect moment-to-moment cognitive processes in the various tasks examined. Theoretical and practical considerations concerning the use of eye movement data are also discussed.

/pdf/eye-movements-in-reading-and-information-processing-20-years-3z5ay8hdwc.pdf

Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research.

The power of feedback.

The measurement of meaning

The diffusion decision model allows detailed explanations of behavior in two-choice discrimination tasks. In this article, the model is reviewed to show how it translates behavioral data—accuracy, mean response times, and response time distributions—into components of cognitive processing. Three experiments are used to illustrate experimental manipulations of three components: stimulus difficulty affects the quality of information on which a decision is based; instructions emphasizing either speed or accuracy affect the criterial amounts of information that a subject requires before initiating a response; and the relative proportions of the two stimuli affect biases in drift rate and starting point. The experiments also illustrate the strong constraints that ensure the model is empirically testable and potentially falsifiable. The broad range of applications of the model is also reviewed, including research in the domains of aging and neurophysiology.

The Diffusion Decision Model: Theory and Data for Two-Choice Decision Tasks

Eye movements are now widely used to investigate cognitive processes during reading, scene perception, and visual search. In this article, research on the following topics is reviewed with respect to reading: (a) the perceptual span (or span of effective vision), (b) preview benefit, (c) eye movement control, and (d) models of eye movements. Related issues with respect to eye movements during scene perception and visual search are also reviewed. It is argued that research on eye movements during reading has been somewhat advanced over research on eye movements in scene perception and visual search and that some of the paradigms developed to study reading should be more widely adopted in the study of scene perception and visual search. Research dealing with "real-world" tasks and research utilizing the visual-world paradigm are also briefly discussed.

https://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~bkbergen/cogs200/Rayner-Bartlett.pdf

Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search.

Most orthographies contain both accented and non-accented vowels. But are they processed as variants of the same letter unit or as separate abstract units? Recent research in French has revealed th...

What is the letter é

Digit position coding in two-digit Arabic numbers was examined in two masked priming experiments. In Experiment 1, participants had to decide whether the presented stimulus was a two-digit Arabic number (e.g., 67) or not (e.g., G7). Target stimuli could be preceded by a prime which (i) shared one digit in the initial position (e.g., 13-18), (ii) shared one digit but in a different position (83-18), and (iii) was a transposed number (81-18). Two unrelated control conditions, equalized in terms of the distance between primes and targets with the experimental conditions, were also included (e.g., 79-18). Results showed a priming effect only when prime and target shared digits in the same position. Experiment 2 employed a masked priming same-different matching task - a task that has been successfully employed in the literature on letter position coding. Results showed faster response times when prime and target shared digits - including the transposed-digit condition - relative to the control conditions. Thus, the identity of each digit in the early stages of visual processing is not associated with a specific position in two-digit Arabic numbers. We examine the implication of these findings for models of Arabic number processing.

/pdf/position-coding-in-two-digit-arabic-numbers-bj9j77yl36.pdf

Position coding in two-digit arabic numbers.

It is unclear whether the association between the visual attention (VA) span and reading differs across languages. Here we studied this relationship in Arabic, where the use of specific reading str...

Does the Visual Attention Span Play a Role in Reading in Arabic

Background: The publication norms of the American Psychological Association recommend the use of a serif font in the manuscripts (Times New Roman). However, there seems to be no well-substantiated reason why serif fonts would produce any advantage during letter/word processing. Method: This study presents an experiment in which sentences were presented either with a serif or sans serif font from the same family while participants' eye movements were monitored. Results: Results did not reveal any differences of type of font in eye movement measures -except for a minimal effect in the number of progressive saccades. Conclusions: There is no reason why the APA publication norms recommend the use of serif fonts other than uniformity in the elaboration/presentation of the manuscripts.

Manuel Perea

Papers

What is the letter é

Position coding in two-digit arabic numbers.

Does the Visual Attention Span Play a Role in Reading in Arabic

Why does the APA recommend the use of serif fonts

Modulation of attention by socio-emotional scenes in children with autism spectrum disorder