Eye Movements of Highly Skilled and Average Readers: Differential Effects of Frequency and Predictability

Abstract

This study offers a glimpse of the moment-by-moment processes used by highly skilled and average readers during silent reading. The eye movements of adult readers were monitored while they silently read sentences. Fixation durations and the spatial-temporal patterns of eye movements were examined to see whether the two groups of readers exhibited differential effects of frequency and/or predictability. In Experiment 1, high- and low-frequency target words were embedded in nonconstraining sentence contexts. In Experiment 2, the same participants read high- and low-frequency target words that were either predictable or unpredictable, embedded in highly constraining sentence contexts. Results indicated that when target words appeared in highly constraining sentence contexts, the average readers showed different effects of frequency and predictability from those shown in the highly skilled readers. It appears that reading skill can interact with predictability to affect the word recognition processes used during silent reading.

Stimulus onset asynchrony and the timeline of word recognition: Event-related potentials during sentence reading

“…In eye movements, biasing contexts prompt anticipatory saccades to objects representing likely continuations of stories (Altmann & Kamide, 1999Kamide, Scheepers, et al, 2003). Moreover, in natural reading, highly predictable words are fixated shorter and are skipped more often than low predictable words; apparently, a supporting context facilitates word processing within one fixation duration (usually less than 250 ms), or even renders inspections of high predictability stimuli dispensable (Ashby et al, 2005;Ehrlich & Rayner, 1981;Kliegl et al, 2004Kliegl et al, , 2006Rayner et al, 2004). Accordingly, the present results provide converging evidence that expectancy of upcoming words can rapidly affect natural word processing.…”

“…Reaction times as well as eye movement data point to faster processing of high than of low predictability words (e.g., Ashby, Rayner, & Clifton, 2005;Calvo & Meseguer;Duffy, Henderson, & Morris, 1989;Ehrlich & Rayner, 1981;Fischler & Bloom, 1979;Kleiman, 1980;Kliegl et al, 2004Kliegl et al, , 2006Rayner, Ashby, Pollatsek, & Reichle, 2004;Rayner, Binder, Ashby, & Pollatsek, 2001;Rayner & Well, 1996;Schuberth & Eimas, 1977;Stanovich & West, 1983;West & Stanovich, 1982). The critical question, however, is when does top-down expectation of a stimulus interact with the incoming visual information during reading and, depending on whether the prediction was correct or wrong, when does it help or hurt word processing?…”

The role of global top-down factors in local eye-movement control in reading

“…In our selective review of literature at the beginning of this paper, we encountered a striking pattern of complex and sometimes paradoxical findings: word-viewing behavior is less influenced by context for highly skilled readers than for average readers (Ashby et al 2005); a word search task eliminates lexical effects (Rayner et al 1996), whereas a letter search task appears not to do so (Greenberg et al 2006); reading to pronounce (i.e., less lexical reading) increases the number and duration of fixations, even for skilled readers (Hendriks and Kolk 1997); and frequency of word n ? 1 affects viewing times of word n for readers of English but not of French (Pynte & Kennedy, 2006).…”

“…Ashby, Rayner, and Clifton (2005) in a recent study explored the eye movement data of average and highly skilled readers as determined by the Nelson-Denny test, a timed assessment of comprehension and vocabulary. They focussed in particular on viewing times for words that were varied independently in terms of their predictability and frequency.…”

Individual differences in the perceptual span during reading: Evidence from the moving window technique

“…Individual differences on a variety of cognitive tasks have been shown to relate to variability in eye movements during reading (e.g., Ashby, Rayner, & Clifton, 2005;Jared, Levy, & Rayner, 1999;Kuperman & Van Dyke, 2011). A key requirement for explaining the nature of individual differences during reading is to better understand how and why readers differ in their ability to extract visual information from the parafovea and to use this information to make processing more efficient.…”