Eye Movements, Cognitive Processes, and Reading

In this article, I briefly review research on the size of the perceptual span in reading and on lexical effects on fixation times in reading. For readers of English, the perceptual span extends from the beginning of the currently fixated word(but no more than 3~4 letters to the left of fixation)to about 14~15 letters to the right of fixation. For readers of Chinese, the span extends about 1 character to the left of fixation to about 3 characters to the right. For readers of English, variables like frequency and predictability have strong influences on how long the eyes remain fixated on a word. We know far less about which variables most influence fixation times for Chinese. Finally, the E-Z Reader model can account for lots of eye movement data for readers of English. The issue of whether E-Z Reader could account for the eye movement data of readers of Chinese is discussed.