A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Dissociating spatial and letter-based word length effects observed in readers' eye movement patterns
Authors: Hautala J, Hyönä J, Aro M
Publisher: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Publication year: 2011
Journal: Vision Research
Journal name in source: VISION RESEARCH
Journal acronym: VISION RES
Number in series: 15
Volume: 51
Issue: 15
First page : 1719
Last page: 1727
Number of pages: 9
ISSN: 0042-6989
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2011.05.015
Abstract
In previous eye movement research on word length effects, spatial width has been confounded with the number of letters. McDonald (2006) unconfounded these factors by rendering all words in sentences in constant spatial width. In the present study, the Anal font with proportional letter spacing was used for varying the number of letters while equating for spatial width, while the Courier font with monospaced letter spacing was used to measure the contribution of spatial width to the observed word length effect. Number of letters in words affected single fixation duration on target words, whereas words' spatial width determined fixation locations in words and the probability of skipping a word. The results support the existence of distinct subsystems for deciding where and when to move eyes in text (Rayner & McConkie, 1976). The number-of-letters effect in fixation duration may be explained by visual acuity, visual crowding, and/or serial letter processing. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
In previous eye movement research on word length effects, spatial width has been confounded with the number of letters. McDonald (2006) unconfounded these factors by rendering all words in sentences in constant spatial width. In the present study, the Anal font with proportional letter spacing was used for varying the number of letters while equating for spatial width, while the Courier font with monospaced letter spacing was used to measure the contribution of spatial width to the observed word length effect. Number of letters in words affected single fixation duration on target words, whereas words' spatial width determined fixation locations in words and the probability of skipping a word. The results support the existence of distinct subsystems for deciding where and when to move eyes in text (Rayner & McConkie, 1976). The number-of-letters effect in fixation duration may be explained by visual acuity, visual crowding, and/or serial letter processing. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
UTU Research Portal