Abstract
During reading, saccadic eye movements are generated to shift words into the center of the visual field for lexical processing. Recently, Krügel and Engbert (Vision Research 50:1532–1539, 2010) demonstrated that within-word fixation positions are largely shifted to the left after skipped words. However, explanations of the origin of this effect cannot be drawn from normal reading data alone. Here we show that the large effect of skipped words on the distribution of within-word fixation positions is primarily based on rather subtle differences in the low-level visual information acquired before saccades. Using arrangements of “x” letter strings, we reproduced the effect of skipped character strings in a highly controlled single-saccade task. Our results demonstrate that the effect of skipped words in reading is the signature of a general visuomotor phenomenon. Moreover, our findings extend beyond the scope of the widely accepted range-error model, which posits that within-word fixation positions in reading depend solely on the distances of target words. We expect that our results will provide critical boundary conditions for the development of visuomotor models of saccade planning during reading.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.3758/s13414-012-0365-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
During reading, saccadic eye movements are generated to shift words into the center of the visual field for lexical processing
We were interested in systematic shifts of saccade landing positions for normal, one-word saccades versus skipping saccades
We did not obtain reliable differences in landing-site distributions for different lengths of the target words, which is different from findings in normal reading (e.g., McConkie et al, 1988)
Summary
Saccadic eye movements are generated to shift words into the center of the visual field for lexical processing. Each one-letter increment of the launch-site distance shifts the distribution of subsequent fixation locations within the word about half a letter to the left This well-established finding is often interpreted as a signature of a saccadic range error (Kapoula, 1985) during reading (McConkie et al, 1988). Krügel and Engbert (2010) demonstrated that word skipping is another important factor that influences saccade landing positions during reading (see Radach, 1996; Radach & Kempe, 1993; Radach & McConkie, 1998). Word skipping strongly modulated the launch-site effect by inducing a large additional leftward shift of the average initial fixation position within the target words. By such an extra leftward displacement of two or more letters (depending on the launch-site distance), the effect of skipped words turned out to be as large as the effect of an approximately six- or seven-letter increment of launch-site distance
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