Visual word recognition and oculomotor control in reading

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Huestegge ◽  
Jonathan Grainger ◽  
Ralph Radach
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Verbal Description ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Computational Implementation ◽  
Processing Module ◽  
Processing Mechanism

A central component in the E-Z Reader model is a two-stage word processing mechanism made responsible for both the triggering of eye movements and sequential shifts of attention. We point to problems with both the verbal description of this mechanism and its computational implementation in the simulation. As an alternative, we consider the use of a connectionist processing module in combination with a more indirect form of cognitive eye-movement control.

scholarly journals Role of Primate Cerebellar Hemisphere in Voluntary Eye Movement Control Revealed by Lesion Effects

2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 934-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masafumi Ohki ◽  
Hiromasa Kitazawa ◽  
Takahito Hiramatsu ◽  
Kimitake Kaga ◽  
Taiko Kitamura ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Cerebellar Hemisphere ◽  
Target Velocity ◽  
Eye Movement Control ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Catch Up

The anatomical connection between the frontal eye field and the cerebellar hemispheric lobule VII (H-VII) suggests a potential role of the hemisphere in voluntary eye movement control. To reveal the involvement of the hemisphere in smooth pursuit and saccade control, we made a unilateral lesion around H-VII and examined its effects in three Macaca fuscata that were trained to pursue visually a small target. To the step (3°)-ramp (5–20°/s) target motion, the monkeys usually showed an initial pursuit eye movement at a latency of 80–140 ms and a small catch-up saccade at 140–220 ms that was followed by a postsaccadic pursuit eye movement that roughly matched the ramp target velocity. After unilateral cerebellar hemispheric lesioning, the initial pursuit eye movements were impaired, and the velocities of the postsaccadic pursuit eye movements decreased. The onsets of 5° visually guided saccades to the stationary target were delayed, and their amplitudes showed a tendency of increased trial-to-trial variability but never became hypo- or hypermetric. Similar tendencies were observed in the onsets and amplitudes of catch-up saccades. The adaptation of open-loop smooth pursuit velocity, tested by a step increase in target velocity for a brief period, was impaired. These lesion effects were recognized in all directions, particularly in the ipsiversive direction. A recovery was observed at 4 wk postlesion for some of these lesion effects. These results suggest that the cerebellar hemispheric region around lobule VII is involved in the control of smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements.

Abstract W P140: Post-stroke Oculomotor Abnormalities evident during Objective Eye Tracking but Not under Clinical Assessment

Stroke ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John-Ross Rizzo ◽  
Todd Hudson ◽  
Briana Kowal ◽  
Michal Wiseman ◽  
Preeti Raghavan
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Stroke Patients ◽  
Movement Execution ◽  
Post Stroke ◽  
Control Post

Introduction: Visual abnormalities and manual motor control have been studied extensively after stroke, but an understanding of oculomotor control post-stroke has not. Recent studies have revealed that in visually guided reaches arm movements are planned during eye movement execution, which may contribute to increased task complexity. In fact, in healthy controls during visually guided reaches, the onset of eye movement is delayed, its velocity reduced, and endpoint errors are larger relative to isolated eye movements. Our objective in this experiment was to examine the temporal properties of eye movement execution for stroke patients with no diagnosed visual impairment. The goal is to improve understanding of oculomotor control in stroke relative to normal function, and ultimately further understand its coordination with manual motor control during joint eye and hand movements. We hypothesized that stroke patients would show abnormal initiation or onset latency for saccades made in an eye movement task, as compared to healthy controls. Methods: We measured the kinematics of eye movements during point-to-point saccades; there was an initial static, fixation point and the stimulus was a flashed target on a computer monitor. We used a video-based eye tracker for objective recording of the eye at a sampling frequency of 2000 Hz (SR Research, Eyelink). 10 stroke subjects, over 4 months from injury and with no diagnosed visual impairment, and 10 healthy controls completed 432 saccades in a serial fashion. Results: Stroke patients had significantly faster onset latencies as compared to healthy controls during saccades (99.5ms vs. 245.2ms, p=0.00058). Conclusion: A better understanding of the variations in oculomotor control post-stroke, which may go unnoticed during clinical assessment, may improve understanding of how eye control synchronizes with arm or manual motor control. This knowledge could assist in tailoring rehabilitative strategies to amplify motor recovery. For next steps, we will perform objective eye and hand recordings during visually guided reaches post-stroke to better understand the harmonization or lack thereof after neurologic insult.

scholarly journals Chapter 1. Eye-tracking: facts and figures

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-44
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
General Information ◽  
Cognitive Research ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Movement Parameters ◽  
Tracking Devices

In chapter 1 we describe the method of eye-tracking and how the interest to studying eye movements developed in time. We describe how modern eye-tracking devices work, including several most commonly used in cognitive research (SR-Research, SMI, Tobii). We also give some general information about eye movement parameters during reading and a brief over- view of main models of eye movement control in reading (SWIFT, E-Z Reader). These models take into account a significant amount of empirical data and simulate the interaction of oculo- motor and cognitive processes involved in reading. Differences between the models, as well as different interpretations allowed within the same model, reflect the complexity of reading and the ongoing discussion about the processes involved in it. The section ends up with the pros and cons of using LCD and CRT displays in eye-tracking studies.

scholarly journals Effects of word predictability on eye movements during Arabic reading

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam A. AlJassmi ◽  
Kayleigh L. Warrington ◽  
Victoria A. McGowan ◽  
Sarah J. White ◽  
Kevin B. Paterson
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Varying Length ◽  
Word Predictability ◽  
Word Skipping ◽  
Alphabetic Writing

AbstractContextual predictability influences both the probability and duration of eye fixations on words when reading Latinate alphabetic scripts like English and German. However, it is unknown whether word predictability influences eye movements in reading similarly for Semitic languages like Arabic, which are alphabetic languages with very different visual and linguistic characteristics. Such knowledge is nevertheless important for establishing the generality of mechanisms of eye-movement control across different alphabetic writing systems. Accordingly, we investigated word predictability effects in Arabic in two eye-movement experiments. Both produced shorter fixation times for words with high compared to low predictability, consistent with previous findings. Predictability did not influence skipping probabilities for (four- to eight-letter) words of varying length and morphological complexity (Experiment 1). However, it did for short (three- to four-letter) words with simpler structures (Experiment 2). We suggest that word-skipping is reduced, and affected less by contextual predictability, in Arabic compared to Latinate alphabetic reading, because of specific orthographic and morphological characteristics of the Arabic script.

scholarly journals The rhythm of cognition – Effects of an auditory beat on oculomotor control in reading and sequential scanning

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elke B. Lange ◽  
Aleksandra Pieczykolan ◽  
Hans A. Trukenbrod ◽  
Lynn Huestegge
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Movement Behavior ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Background Music ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Text Reading ◽  
Musical Tempo ◽  
Sequential Scanning

Eye-movement behavior is inherently rhythmic. Even without cognitive input, the eyes never rest, as saccades are generated 3 to 4 times per second. Based on an embodied view of cognition, we asked whether mental processing in visual cognitive tasks is also rhythmic in nature by studying the effects of an external auditory beat (rhythmic background music) on saccade generation in exemplary cognitive tasks (reading and sequential scanning). While in applied settings background music has been demonstrated to impair reading comprehension, the effect of musical tempo on eye-movement control during reading or scanning has not been investigated so far. We implemented a tempo manipulation in four steps as well as a silent baseline condition, while participants completed a text reading or a sequential scanning task that differed from each other in terms of underlying cognitive processing requirements. The results revealed that increased tempo of the musical beat sped up fixations in text reading, while the presence (vs. absence) of the auditory stimulus generally reduced overall reading time. In contrast, sequential scanning was unaffected by the auditory pacemaker. These results were supported by additionally applying Bayesian inference statistics. Our study provides evidence against a cognitive load account (i.e., that spare resources during low-demand sequential scanning allow for enhanced processing of the external beat). Instead, the data suggest an interpretation in favor of a modulation of the oculomotor saccade timer by irrelevant background music in cases involving highly automatized oculomotor control routines (here: in text reading).

scholarly journals Simple Configuration Effects on Eye Movements in Horizontal Scanning Tasks

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilze Laicane ◽  
Jurgis Skilters ◽  
Ivars Lacis
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Perceptual Grouping ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Reading Text ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
Meaningful Text ◽  
Gaze Fixations

When reading text, observers alternate periods of stable gaze (fixations) and shifts of gaze (saccades). An important debate in the literature concerns the processes that drive the control of these eye movements. Past studies using strings of letters rather than meaningful text ('z-reading') suggest that eye movement control during reading is, to a large extent, controlled by low-level image properties. These studies, however, have failed to take into account perceptual grouping processes that could drive these low-level effects. We here study the role of various grouping factors in horizontal scanning eye movements, and compare these to reading meaningful text. The results show that sequential horizontal scanning of meaningless and visually distinctive stimuli is slower than for meaningful stimuli (e.g. letters instead of dots). Moreover, we found strong evidence for anticipatory processes in saccadic processing during horizontal scanning tasks. These results suggest a strong role of perceptual grouping in oculomotor control in reading.

scholarly journals The Influence of Irrelevant Visual Distractors on Eye Movement Control in Chinese Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from the Remote Distractor Paradigm

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 500-512
Author(s):  
Li Zhang ◽  
Guoli Yan ◽  
Li Zhou ◽  
Zebo Lan ◽  
Valerie Benson
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Eye Movement Control ◽  
Children With Asd

Abstract The current study examined eye movement control in autistic (ASD) children. Simple targets were presented in isolation, or with central, parafoveal, or peripheral distractors synchronously. Sixteen children with ASD (47–81 months) and nineteen age and IQ matched typically developing children were instructed to look to the target as accurately and quickly as possible. Both groups showed high proportions (40%) of saccadic errors towards parafoveal and peripheral distractors. For correctly executed eye movements to the targets, centrally presented distractors produced the longest latencies (time taken to initiate eye movements), followed by parafoveal and peripheral distractor conditions. Central distractors had a greater effect in the ASD group, indicating evidence for potential atypical voluntary attentional control in ASD children.

Eye movements when reading sentences with handwritten words

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Perea ◽  
Ana Marcet ◽  
Beatriz Uixera ◽  
Marta Vergara-Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Word Frequency ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Word Frequency Effect ◽  
Fixation Durations ◽  
Lexical Effects

The examination of how we read handwritten words (i.e., the original form of writing) has typically been disregarded in the literature on reading. Previous research using word recognition tasks has shown that lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) are magnified when reading difficult handwritten words. To examine this issue in a more ecological scenario, we registered the participants’ eye movements when reading handwritten sentences that varied in the degree of legibility (i.e., sentences composed of words in easy vs. difficult handwritten style). For comparison purposes, we included a condition with printed sentences. Results showed a larger reading cost for sentences with difficult handwritten words than for sentences with easy handwritten words, which in turn showed a reading cost relative to the sentences with printed words. Critically, the effect of word frequency was greater for difficult handwritten words than for easy handwritten words or printed words in the total times on a target word, but not on first-fixation durations or gaze durations. We examine the implications of these findings for models of eye movement control in reading.

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