Return-sweep saccades in oral reading

Abstract

Recent research on return-sweep saccades has improved our understanding of eye movements when reading paragraphs. However, these saccades, which take our gaze from the end of one line to the start of the next line, have been studied only within the context of silent reading. Articulatory demands and the coordination of the eye–voice span (EVS) at line boundaries suggest that the execution of this saccade may be different in oral reading. We compared launch and landing positions of return-sweeps, corrective saccade probability and fixations adjacent to return-sweeps in skilled adult readers while reading paragraphs aloud and silently. Compared to silent reading, return-sweeps were launched from closer to the end of the line and landed closer to the start of the next line when reading aloud. The probability of making a corrective saccade was higher for oral reading than silent reading. These indicate that oral reading may compel readers to rely more on foveal processing at the expense of parafoveal processing. We found an interaction between reading modality and fixation type on fixation durations. The reading modality effect (i.e., increased fixation durations in oral compared to silent reading) was greater for accurate line-initial fixations and marginally greater for line-final fixations compared to intra-line fixations. This suggests that readers may use the fixations adjacent to return-sweeps as natural pause locations to modulate the EVS.

What is the optimal position of low‐frequency words across line boundaries? An eye movement investigation

“…Past studies have already shown subtle differences in return‐sweep behaviour when reading silently and aloud (i.e. Adedeji et al, 2021), so it remains an open question of whether the position of words will differentially affect fixations falling adjacent to return‐sweeps.…”

“…We also observed an effect of our manipulation on return-sweep fixations. Line-final fixations have consistently been reported to be shorter than intra-line reading fixations (Abrams & Zuber, 1972;Adedeji et al, 2021;Parker, Nikolova, et al, 2019;. It has been argued that this reflects reduced lexical processing during line-final fixations while readers prioritise oculomotor programming (Kuperman et al, 2010).…”

Column setting and text justification influence return-sweep eye movement behavior during Chinese multi-line reading

“…We should also consider the relationship between intra-line fixations and return-sweep fixations. In the reading of alphabetic languages, it is well documented that, compared to intra-line fixations, line-final fixations are shorter, accurate line-initial fixations are longer and undersweep-fixations are shortest (Abrams & Zuber, 1972 ; Adedeji et al, 2022 ; Hawley et al, 1974 ; Heller, 1982 ; Hofmeister et al, 1999 ; Parker et al, 2020 ; Parker & Slattery, 2019 ; Rayner, 1977 ; Rayner, 1978 ; Slattery & Parker, 2019 ). We have no empirical grounds to anticipate that this basic pattern of effects might differ between alphabetic languages and character-based languages, and therefore, we expect that in the reading of Chinese multi-line texts, we might obtain the same pattern of results.…”

Frequency and Predictability Effects for Line Final Words

“…Return sweeps have been reported to undershoot their target on 40-60% of occasions and require an immediate corrective saccade towards the left margin (Slattery & Vasilev, 2019). The rate of undershoot error is again determined by characteristics of the text, such as line length (e.g., Parker & Slattery, 2021), but also by characteristics of the reader (i.e., reading skill; Parker & Slattery, 2021) or task demands (Adedeji et al, 2021). Due to the two trajectories of return-sweeps, the fixations following a return-sweep can be grouped into two fixation populations: accurate line-initial fixations (where the line initial fixation is followed by a rightwards saccade) and under-sweep fixations (where the line-initial fixation is followed by a leftwards saccade prior a rightwards pass).…”

“…There is ample evidence to suggest that line-initial fixations are longer than intra-line reading fixations (Adedeji et al, 2021;Parker, Nikolova, et al, 2019;Parker & Slattery, 2021;Vasilev et al, 2021), presumably because readers are unable to engage in parafoveal processing for line-initial words and must complete word identification under foveal processing. In contrast, under-sweep fixations are shorter than intra-line reading fixations (Adedeji et al, 2021;Parker, Nikolova, et al, 2019;Parker & Slattery, 2021;Vasilev et al, 2021). It has been argued that these fixations are shorter as they are terminated based on retinal feedback and redirect a reader's gaze to a new position for lexical processing (Abrams & Zuber, 1972).…”