Abstract
Large-scale changes in text spacing, such as removing the spaces between words, disrupt reading more for older (65+ years) than younger (18–30 years) adults. However, it is unknown whether older readers show greater sensitivity to simultaneous subtle changes in inter-letter and inter-word spacing encountered in everyday reading. To investigate this, we recorded young and older adults’ eye movements while reading sentences in which inter-letter and inter-word spacing was normal, condensed (10 and 20% smaller than normal), or expanded (10 or 20% larger than normal). Each sentence included either a high or low frequency target word, matched for length and contextual predictability. Condensing but not expanding text spacing disrupted reading more for the older adults. Moreover, word frequency effects (the reading time cost for low compared to high frequency words) were larger for the older adults, consistent with aging effects on lexical processing in previous research. However, this age difference in the word frequency effect did not vary across spacing conditions, suggesting spacing did not further disrupt older readers’ lexical processing. We conclude that visual rather than lexical processing is disrupted more for older readers when text spacing is condensed and discuss this finding in relation to common age-related visual deficits.
Highlights
Considerable evidence shows that older adults experience greater difficulty reading compared to young adults, even when their visual and cognitive abilities appear normal
Where studies have included a manipulation of word frequency (e.g., Rayner et al, 1998, 2013; McGowan et al, 2014), the findings show that removing spaces produces larger word frequency effects, by disproportionately increasing reading times for lower frequency words
Sentence-level measures comprised sentence reading time, average fixation duration, number of fixations, number of regressions, first-pass word-skipping, and forward saccade length
Summary
Considerable evidence shows that older adults (aged 65+ years) experience greater difficulty reading compared to young adults (aged 18–30 years), even when their visual and cognitive abilities appear normal (see Gordon et al, 2015). As this study did not examine effects of changes in inter-letter spacing, further research is needed to more fully understand if older adults can benefit from simultaneous subtle increases in inter-letter and inter-word spacing to young adults in previous eye movement studies (Perea and Gomez, 2012b; Slattery and Rayner, 2013). In line with previous research, subtle increases in inter-letter and inter-word spacing might benefit eye movement behavior by reducing average fixation time and perhaps producing faster sentences reading times, and these benefits may be greater for older adults. We examined whether changes in text spacing affected saccadetargeting, by producing shorter forward eye movements but more word-skipping when spacing is condensed, but longer forward eye movements and less word-skipping when spacing is expanded, and whether these effects differ across adult age groups
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