Abstract
Effects of word length on where and for how long readers fixate within text are preserved in older age for alphabetic languages like English that use spaces to demarcate word boundaries. However, word length effects for older readers of naturally unspaced, character-based languages like Chinese are unknown. Accordingly, we examined age differences in eye movements for short (2-character) and long (4-character) words during Chinese reading. Word length effects on eye-fixation times were greater for older than younger adults. We suggest this age difference is due to older adults’ saccades landing more rarely at optimal intraword locations, especially in longer words.
Highlights
Effects of word length on where and for how long readers fixate within text are preserved in older age for alphabetic languages like English that use spaces to demarcate word boundaries
To investigate age differences in eye guidance during Chinese reading more closely, we recorded the eye movements of young and older adults who read sentences that contained short (2-character) or long (4-character) target words matched for lexical frequency, first-character frequency and predictability
Our results confirm that Chinese older adults read more slowly than young adults by making more and longer fixations, more regressions, shorter forward saccades, and skipping word infrequently (Wang et al, in press; Zang et al, 2016)
Summary
Effects of Word Length on Eye Guidance Differ for Young and Older Chinese Readers Effects of word length on where and for how long readers fixate within text are preserved in older age for alphabetic languages like English that use spaces to demarcate word boundaries.
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