Abstract
An on-line computer technique was used to determine whether three skilled readers acquired visual information equally far to the left and right of central vision during fixations in reading. None of the subjects appeared to use visual information more than four character positions to the left of the fixation point (smaller distances were not tested), though all of them acquired visual information substantially further than that to the right. Thus, the region of useful visual information in reading is asymmetric around the fixation point.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bouma, H. Visual recognition of isolated lowercase letters. Vision Research, 1971, 11, 459–474.
Bouma, H. Visual interference in the parafoveal recognition of initial and final letters of words. Vision Research, 1973, 13, 767–782.
Hodge, D. C. Legibility of a uniform-stroke width alphabet: 1. Relative legibility of upper and lower-class letters. Journal of Engineering Psychology, 1962, 1, 34–46.
McConkie, G. W., & Rayner, K. The span of the effective stimulus during a fixation in reading. Perception & Psychophysics, 1975, 17, 578–586.
Rayner, K. The perceptual span and peripheral cues in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 1975, 7, 65–81.
Reder, S. M. On-line monitoring of eye position signals in contingent and noncontingent paradigms. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation, 1973, 5, 218–228.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The research described in this report was carried out at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The authors wish to express their gratitude to Dr. Marvin Minsky and Mr. Russell Noftsker for the use of the extensive computer facilities at the AI Lab, and to David Silver and Gary Wolverton for assistance with programming and data analysis. The research was supported by a special fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author and by Grant OEG 2-71-0531 from the Office of Education. Portions of these data were presented at the 1975 meetings of the American Educational Research Association.
This paper is sponsored by Ralph N. Haber, who takes full editorial responsibility for its content.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McConkie, G.W., Rayner, K. Asymmetry of the perceptual span in reading. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 8, 365–368 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335168
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03335168