TY - JOUR A1 - Meixner, Johannes M. A1 - Nixon, Jessie S. A1 - Laubrock, Jochen T1 - The perceptual span is dynamically adjusted in response to foveal load by beginning readers JF - Journal of experimental psychology : general N2 - The perceptual span describes the size of the visual field from which information is obtained during a fixation in reading. Its size depends on characteristics of writing system and reader, but-according to the foveal load hypothesis-it is also adjusted dynamically as a function of lexical processing difficulty. Using the moving window paradigm to manipulate the amount of preview, here we directly test whether the perceptual span shrinks as foveal word difficulty increases. We computed the momentary size of the span from word-based eye-movement measures as a function of foveal word frequency, allowing us to separately describe the perceptual span for information affecting spatial saccade targeting and temporal saccade execution. First fixation duration and gaze duration on the upcoming (parafoveal) word N + 1 were significantly shorter when the current (foveal) word N was more frequent. We show that the word frequency effect is modulated by window size. Fixation durations on word N + 1 decreased with high-frequency words N, but only for large windows, that is, when sufficient parafoveal preview was available. This provides strong support for the foveal load hypothesis. To investigate the development of the foveal load effect, we analyzed data from three waves of a longitudinal study on the perceptual span with German children in Grades 1 to 6. Perceptual span adjustment emerged early in development at around second grade and remained stable in later grades. We conclude that the local modulation of the perceptual span indicates a general cognitive process, perhaps an attentional gradient with rapid readjustment. KW - eye movements KW - attention KW - perceptual span KW - foveal load KW - reading KW - development Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001140 SN - 0096-3445 SN - 1939-2222 VL - 151 IS - 6 SP - 1219 EP - 1232 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yan, Ming A1 - Zhou, Wei A1 - Shu, Hua A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Perceptual span depends on font size during the reading of chinese sentences JF - Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition N2 - The present study explored the perceptual span (i.e., the physical extent of an area from which useful visual information is extracted during a single fixation) during the reading of Chinese sentences in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, we tested whether the rightward span can go beyond 3 characters when visually similar masks were used. Results showed that Chinese readers needed at least 4 characters to the right of fixation to maintain a normal reading behavior when visually similar masks were used and when characters were displayed in small fonts, indicating that the span is dynamically influenced by masking materials. In Experiments 2 and 3, we asked whether the perceptual span varies as a function of font size in spaced (German) and unspaced (Chinese) scripts. Results clearly suggest perceptual span depends on font size in Chinese, but we failed to find such evidence for German. We propose that the perceptual span in Chinese is flexible; it is strongly constrained by its language-specific properties such as high information density and lack of word spacing. Implications for saccade-target selection during the reading of Chinese sentences are discussed. KW - eye movements KW - parafoveal processing KW - perceptual span KW - Chinese reading Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038097 SN - 0278-7393 SN - 1939-1285 VL - 41 IS - 1 SP - 209 EP - 219 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Risse, Sarah A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Dissociating preview validity and preview difficulty in parafoveal processing of word n+1 during reading JF - Journal of experimental psychology : Human perception and performance N2 - Many studies have shown that previewing the next word n + 1 during reading leads to substantial processing benefit (e.g., shorter word viewing times) when this word is eventually fixated. However, evidence of such preprocessing in fixations on the preceding word n when in fact the information about the preview is acquired is far less consistent. A recent study suggested that such effects may be delayed into fixations on the next word n + 1 (Risse & Kliegl, 2012). To investigate the time course of parafoveal information-acquisition on the control of eye movements during reading, we conducted 2 gaze-contingent display-change experiments and orthogonally manipulated the processing difficulty (i.e., word frequency) of an n + 1 preview word and its validity relative to the target word. Preview difficulty did not affect fixation durations on the pretarget word n but on the target word n + 1. In fact, the delayed preview-difficulty effect was almost of the same size as the preview benefit associated with the n + 1 preview validity. Based on additional results from quantile-regression analyses on the time course of the 2 preview effects, we discuss consequences as to the integration of foveal and parafoveal information and potential implications for computational models of eye guidance in reading. KW - display-change awareness KW - eye movements KW - parafoveal-on-foveal effect KW - parafoveal preview benefit KW - perceptual span Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034997 SN - 0096-1523 SN - 1939-1277 VL - 40 IS - 2 SP - 653 EP - 668 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Risse, Sarah A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Evidence for delayed Parafoveal-on-Foveal effects from word n+2 in reading JF - Journal of experimental psychology : Human perception and performance N2 - During reading information is acquired from word(s) beyond the word that is currently looked at. It is still an open question whether such parafoveal information can influence the current viewing of a word, and if so, whether such parafoveal-on-foveal effects are attributable to distributed processing or to mislocated fixations which occur when the eyes are directed at a parafoveal word but land on another word instead. In two display-change experiments, we orthogonally manipulated the preview and target difficulty of word n+2 to investigate the role of mislocated fixations on the previous word n+1. When the eyes left word n, an easy or difficult word n+2 preview was replaced by an easy or difficult n+2 target word. In Experiment 1, n+2 processing difficulty was manipulated by means of word frequency (i.e., easy high-frequency vs. difficult low-frequency word n+2). In Experiment 2, we varied the visual familiarity of word n+2 (i.e., easy lower-case vs. difficult alternating-case writing). Fixations on the short word n+1, which were likely to be mislocated, were nevertheless not influenced by the difficulty of the adjacent word n+2, the hypothesized target of the mislocated fixation. Instead word n+1 was influenced by the preview difficulty of word n+2, representing a delayed parafoveal-on-foveal effect. The results challenge the mislocated-fixation hypothesis as an explanation of parafoveal-on-foveal effects and provide new insight into the complex spatial and temporal effect structure of processing inside the perceptual span during reading. KW - perceptual span KW - n+2-boundary paradigm KW - preview benefit KW - parafoveal-on-foveal effect KW - mislocated fixations KW - eye movements Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027735 SN - 0096-1523 VL - 38 IS - 4 SP - 1026 EP - 1042 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Risse, Sarah A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Adult age differences in the perceptual span during reading JF - Psychology and aging N2 - Following up on research suggesting an age-related reduction in the rightward extent of the perceptual span during reading (Rayner, Castelhano, & Yang, 2009), we compared old and young adults in an N + 2-boundary paradigm in which a nonword preview of word N + 2 or word N + 2 itself is replaced by the target word once the eyes cross an invisible boundary located after word N. The intermediate word N + I was always three letters long. Gaze durations on word N + 2 were significantly shorter for identical than nonword N + 2 preview both for young and for old adults, with no significant difference in this preview benefit. Young adults, however, did modulate their gaze duration on word N more strongly than old adults in response to the difficulty of the parafoveal word N + I. Taken together, the results suggest a dissociation of preview benefit and parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Results are discussed in terms of age-related decline in resilience towards distributed processing while simultaneously preserving the ability to integrate parafoveal information into foveal processing. As such, the present results relate to proposals of regulatory compensation strategies older adults use to secure an overall reading speed very similar to that of young adults. KW - age differences KW - perceptual span KW - preview benefit KW - parafoveal-on-foveal effect KW - compensation strategies Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021616 SN - 0882-7974 VL - 26 IS - 2 SP - 451 EP - 460 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER -