Developmental changes in the size of the visual span for reading: Effects of Crowding

Abstract

1. The visual span is the number of adjacent letters that can be recognized reliably without moving the eyes. Previous research in our lab has shown that reading speed is correlated with the size of the visual span. 2. The size of the visual span increases with grade level (Kwon et al., 2005). 3. “Crowding ” refers to interfering effects of adjacent letters on the recognition of target letters (Bouma, 1970; Pelli et al. 2004). Crowding is a factor limiting the size of the visual span.