Understanding the visual constraints on lexical processing: New empirical and simulation results.

Abstract

Word identification is slower and less accurate outside central vision, but the precise relationship between retinal eccentricity and lexical processing is not well specified by models of either word identification or reading. In a seminal eye-movement study, Rayner and Morrison (1981) found that participants made remarkably accurate naming and lexical-decision responses to words displayed more than 3 degrees from the center of vision-even under conditions requiring fixed gaze. However, the validity of these findings is challenged by a range of methodological limitations. We report a series of gaze-contingent lexical-decision and naming experiments that replicate and extend Rayner and Morrison's study to provide a more accurate estimate of how visual constraints delimit lexical processing. Simulations were conducted using the E-Z Reader model (Reichle et al., 2012) to assess the implications for understanding eye-movement control during reading. Augmenting the model's assumptions about the impact of both eccentricity and visual crowding on the rate of lexical processing provided good fits to the observed data without impairing the model's ability to simulate benchmark eye-movement effects. The findings are discussed with a view toward the development of a complete model of reading.

Lexical processing across the visual field

“…For example, if the eyes fixate the middle of a word, then information about the letters on either side of the fixation will be propagated to contralateral hemispheres, with more rapid propagation for the left hemisphere and different rates if the letters differ with respect to their informativeness. The model is thus broadly compatible with the RVF advantage for lexical processing that has been reported in the literature (e.g., Veldre et al, 2022). Offsetting this, however, is the fact that SERIF provides neither a deep account of lexical processing nor of how its rate and accuracy are modulated by eccentricity; in the model, the base rate of visual information accrual is simply a linear function of eccentricity.…”

“…It is also possible that eccentricity effects and visual field asymmetry depend on task demands. Although the relative impact of eccentricity on lexical-processing performance observed by Veldre et al (2022) largely confirmed the findings of Rayner and Morrison (1981), the RVF advantage was considerably more pronounced in Veldre et al's data. For example, at 1º eccentricity, lexical-decision accuracy was approximately 20% higher, and response latency was 20 ms faster in the RVF than the LVF in Veldre et al's eye-tracking experiment (see Figure 1).…”

“…Although these findings demonstrate the limits of lexical processing in the parafovea and periphery, the experiments suffer from a number of methodological problems (for a full discussion, see Veldre et al, 2022). These methodological issues raised questions about the validity of the absolute estimates of the effect of eccentricity on lexical-processing performance.…”

“…As part of a recent effort to replicate and confirm Rayner and Morrison's (1981) findings, we developed an experimental paradigm for examining lexical processing across the visual field to be administered online via a web browser (Veldre et al, 2022). In this paradigm, letter strings were presented either centrally at the point of fixation (i.e., 0º eccentricity), or at various eccentric positions to the left or right of fixation.…”

“…The models that provide exceptions to these caveats thus warrant further discussion because they provide interesting (partial) accounts of the interplay of visual information extraction, lexical knowledge, and higher-level language processing. Four of the eye-movement control models (ASM: Reilly, 1993;CRM: Li & Pollatsek, 2020;Glemore: Reilly & Radach, 2006;OB1-Reader: Snell et al, 2018) incorporate variants 1 As will be discussed below, this limitation has been partially addressed in the most recent version of E-Z Reader (Veldre et al, 2022).…”