Abstract
Recent research has shown that differences in the effectiveness of spatial frequencies for fast and slow skilled adult readers may be an important component of differences in reading ability in the skilled adult reading population (Jordan et al., 2016a). But the precise nature of this influence on lexical processing during reading remains to be fully determined. Accordingly, to gain more insight into the use of spatial frequencies by skilled adult readers with fast and slow reading abilities, the present study looked at effects of spatial frequencies on the processing of specific target words in sentences. These target words were of either high or low lexical frequency and each sentence was displayed as normal or filtered to contain only very low, low, medium, high, or very high spatial frequencies. Eye movement behavior for target words was closest to normal for each reading ability when text was shown in medium or higher spatial frequency displays, although reading occurred for all spatial frequencies. Moreover, typical word frequency effects (the processing advantage for words with higher lexical frequencies) were observed for each reading ability across a broad range of spatial frequencies, indicating that many different spatial frequencies provide access to lexical representations during textual reading for both fast and slow skilled adult readers. Crucially, however, target word fixations were fewer and shorter for fast readers than for slow readers for all display types, and this advantage for fast readers appeared to be similar for normal, medium, high, and very high spatial frequencies but larger for low and very low spatial frequencies. Therefore, although fast and slow skilled adult readers can both use a broad range of spatial frequencies when reading, fast readers make more effective use of these spatial frequencies, and especially those that are lower, when processing the identities of words.
Highlights
During reading, the eyes move along lines of text in a series of saccadic movements, each movement ending in a brief fixational pause (Rayner, 1998, 2009)
Following previous research (e.g., Jackson and McClelland, 1979; Patching and Jordan, 2005a,b; see Rayner et al, 2010), fast and slow readers were identified by their effective reading speed, which was calculated for each participant by multiplying reading speed in words per minute by the proportion of reading comprehension questions answered correctly
Differences were observed, across the displays, F(5, 140) = 67.88, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.71, and comprehension accuracy was high for text shown normally (95%) and filtered to contain only low (93%), medium (96%), high (95%), or very high (93%) spatial frequencies, but lower for very low spatial frequencies (61%; ps < 0.01)
Summary
The eyes move along lines of text in a series of saccadic movements, each movement ending in a brief fixational pause (Rayner, 1998, 2009). The forward movement of the eyes through text appears to be driven by processes underlying the identification of words, and findings show that words with a lower frequency of written usage, which are less familiar, are fixated for longer (e.g., Inhoff and Rayner, 1986; Rayner and Duffy, 1986; Rayner et al, 1996; Juhasz and Rayner, 2003; Juhasz et al, 2006; Paterson and Jordan, 2010). The nature of the visual information acquired on each fixation, and its effectiveness for supporting access to lexical representations, is not yet well-established It is of particular relevance for the present research that visual pathways in the brain are selectively sensitive to spatial frequencies associated with different scales of visual information (e.g., Robson, 1966; Blakemore and Campbell, 1969; Lovegrove et al, 1980). The effectiveness of different spatial frequencies for accessing lexical representations and how this might differ for readers of different abilities remains unclear
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