Do readers use character information when programming return-sweep saccades?

Vasilev, Martin R.; Adedeji, Victoria I.; Laursen, Calvin; Budka, Marcin; Slattery, Timothy J.

doi:10.1016/j.visres.2021.01.003

Cited by 6 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(55 reference statements)

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“…Removal of those cases resulted in no interaction between reading modality and launch distance as well as a statistically significant main effect of launch distance on landing positions. Such an influence may mirror inconsistencies found with launch distance effects on return-sweeps (see Slattery & Vasilev, 2019;Vasilev et al, 2021). Considering these, more research is needed to clarify the influence of launch distance on return-sweep landing positions in skilled adult reading.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, this occurs approximately 40-60% of the time (Slattery & Vasilev, 2019). Research shows that the probability of making a corrective saccade is determined by an increase in saccade amplitude as indexed by line length measured in degrees of visual angle where longer lines lead to more corrective saccades (Hofmeister et al, 1999;Vasilev et al, 2021). Return-sweep landing positions closer to the left margin have also been associated with fewer corrective saccades as the magnitude of undershoot error provides retinal feedback to the oculomotor system to determine whether a corrective saccade should be triggered (Hofmeister et al, 1999;Vasilev et al, 2021).…”

Section: Return-sweep Saccades In Silent Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research shows that the probability of making a corrective saccade is determined by an increase in saccade amplitude as indexed by line length measured in degrees of visual angle where longer lines lead to more corrective saccades (Hofmeister et al, 1999;Vasilev et al, 2021). Return-sweep landing positions closer to the left margin have also been associated with fewer corrective saccades as the magnitude of undershoot error provides retinal feedback to the oculomotor system to determine whether a corrective saccade should be triggered (Hofmeister et al, 1999;Vasilev et al, 2021). Return-sweeps may also incur a large cost if they are launched too early and require a longdistance regression back to the end of the prior line, especially because line boundaries do not usually coincide with sentence boundaries (Kuperman et al, 2010).…”

Section: Return-sweep Saccades In Silent Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, compared to intra-line saccades, return-sweep saccades are longer—typically travelling between 40 and 70 characters (Slattery & Vasilev, 2019 ). The landing position of a return-sweep saccade is influenced by the length of the previous line: with longer lines, landing positions shift to the right (Hofmeister et al, 1999 ; Parker et al, 2019a , b ; Vasilev et al, 2021 ). Unlike intra-line saccades, where the target is assumed to be the centre of a word (known as Optimal Viewing Position [OVP]; McConkie et al, 1988 ), the target of the return-sweep saccade is assumed to be an area relative to the left margin that is independent of the length of the first word on a line (Slattery & Vasilev, 2019 ).…”

Section: Eye-movements During Oral Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike intra-line saccades, where the target is assumed to be the centre of a word (known as Optimal Viewing Position [OVP]; McConkie et al, 1988 ), the target of the return-sweep saccade is assumed to be an area relative to the left margin that is independent of the length of the first word on a line (Slattery & Vasilev, 2019 ). Furthermore, return-sweep landing positions are influenced by font size information, whereby landing positions in visual angle are shifted rightwards with large compared to small font sizes (Hofmeister, 1998 ; Vasilev et al, 2021 ). This effect is independent of the length of the previous line and suggests that readers use global text characteristics to target a location on the new line that maximizes word identification processes (Vasilev et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Eye-movements During Oral Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Return-sweep saccades in oral reading

Adedeji

Vasilev

Kirkby

et al. 2021

Psychological Research

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Return-sweep Saccades In Silent Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Return-sweep Saccades In Silent Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Eye-movements During Oral Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Eye-movements During Oral Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Return-sweep saccades in oral reading

Adedeji

Vasilev

Kirkby

et al. 2021

Psychological Research

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

Parker

Räsänen

Slattery

2023

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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When displaying text on a page or a screen, only a finite number of characters can be presented on a single line. If the text exceeds that finite value, then text wrapping occurs. Often this process results in longer, more difficult to process words being positioned at the start of a line. We conducted an eye movement study to examine how this artefact of text wrapping affects passage reading. This allowed us to answer the question: should word difficulty be used when determining line breaks? Thirty-nine participants read 20 passages where low-frequency target words were either line-initial or line-final. There was no statistically reliable effect of our manipulation on passage reading time or comprehension despite several effects at a local level. Regarding our primary research question, the evidence suggests that word difficulty may not need to be accounted for when determining line breaks and assigning words to new lines.

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Lower-level oculomotor deficits in schizophrenia during multi-line reading: Evidence from return-sweeps

Christofalos,

Laks,

Wolfer

et al. 2024

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Reading fluency deficits in schizophrenia (Sz) have been attributed to dysfunction in both lower-level, oculomotor processing and higher-level, lexical processing, according to the 2-hit deficit model (Dias et al., 2021). Given that prior work examining reading deficits in readers with Sz has primarily focused on single-line and single-word reading tasks, eye-movements that are unique to passage reading, such as return-sweep saccades, have not yet been examined in Sz. Return-sweep saccades are large eye-movements that are made when readers move from the end of one line to the beginning of the next line during natural passage reading. Examining return-sweeps provides an opportunity to examine lower-level, oculomotor deficits during reading under circumstances when upcoming higher-level, lexical information is not available for visual processing because visual acuity constraints do not permit detailed lexical processing of line-initial words when return-sweeps are programmed. To examine the source of reading deficits in Sz, we analyzed an existing dataset (Dias et al., 2021) in which participants read multi-line passages with manipulations to line-spacing. Readers with Sz made significantly more return-sweep targeting errors followed by corrective saccades compared to healthy controls. Both groups showed similar effects of line spacing on return-sweep targeting accuracy, suggesting similar sensitivities to visual crowding during reading. Furthermore, the patterns of fixation durations in readers with Sz corroborates prior work indicating reduced parafoveal processing of upcoming words. Together, these findings suggest that lower-level visual and oculomotor dysfunction contribute to reading deficits in Sz, providing support for the 2-hit deficit model (Dias et al., 2021).

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Do readers use character information when programming return-sweep saccades?

Cited by 6 publications

References 65 publications

Return-sweep saccades in oral reading

Return-sweep saccades in oral reading

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

Lower-level oculomotor deficits in schizophrenia during multi-line reading: Evidence from return-sweeps

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