Is word recognition different in central and peripheral vision?

Abstract

Peripheral vision plays an important role in normal reading, but its role becomes larger for visually impaired people with central-field loss. This experiment studied whether lexical processing differs in central and peripheral vision through the analysis of word-frequency effects in lexical decisions. We asked two main questions: (1) Do central and peripheral vision differ in the time course of lexical processing? and (2) do central and peripheral vision differ in the quality of lexical processing? To address the first question, we examined the time course of frequency effects in central and peripheral vision over a range from 25 to 500 ms. We found that significant frequency effects occurred for the shortest exposures, 25-50 ms, in central vision, whereas significant frequency effects did not occur in peripheral vision until 100 ms. To address the second question, we used word-frequency effects as a marker for the nature of lexical processing. We compared frequency effects in central and peripheral vision for data within matched ranges of percent accuracy (0-20%, 20-40%, 40-60%, 60-80%, and 80-100%). We found that there was no difference in the pattern of frequency effects in central and peripheral vision at equivalent performance levels. We conclude that lexical processing is slower in peripheral vision, but the quality of lexical processing is similar in central and peripheral vision.

Deployment of spatial attention to words in central and peripheral vision

“…This interaction is consistent with the results obtained by Lee, Legge, and Ortiz (2003), who demonstrated that the time course of frequency effects differed in central and peripheral vision, with frequency effects emerging more slowly in peripheral vision. Significant frequency effects occurred for the shortest exposures in central vision (25-50 msec), whereas significant frequency effects did not occur in peripheral vision until the exposures lasted 100 msec.…”

Parafoveal processing in reading

“…Importantly, subjects were better at naming words than pronounceable nonwords, suggesting that they not only had processed information about the letters, but also had accessed the words' lexical entries. Lee, Legge, and Ortiz (2003) presented evidence suggesting that lexical information about a word is of the 1 Letter spaces are typically used as the metric for how far the eyes move, because the number of letters traversed by saccades is relatively invariant when the same text is read at different viewing distances, even though the letter spaces subtend different visual angles O'Regan, 1983). Fig.…”

Perceptual grouping across eccentricity

“…Moving patterns that are easily separated with foveal viewing are aggregated into a single pattern in the periphery (De Bruyn, 1997). Similarly, performance declines with increased eccentricity for higher-order functions, including word recognition (Lee, Legge, & Ortiz, 2003), biological motion identification (Ikeda, Blake, & Watanabe, 2005), facial recognition (Mäkelä et al, 2001), and object detection in natural scenes (Thorpe et al, 2001).…”

“…Adjusting scale in accordance with cortical magnification factors improves performance for measures of acuity (Virsu, Näsänen, & Osmoviita, 1987), motion coherence (van de Grind, van Doorn, & Koenderink, 1983), and letter recognition (Higgins, Arditi, & Knoblauch, 1996). However, increased stimulus scale does not equate foveal and eccentric viewing for stereopsis (Prince & Rogers, 1998), word recognition (Lee, Legge, & Ortiz, 2003), contour integration (Hess & Dakin, 1997), biological motion (Ikeda, Blake, & Watanabe, 2005), or facial recognition (Mäkelä et al, 2001). In this regard, processing such stimuli require foveal viewing for optimal performance, regardless of scale adjustments.…”