Abstract
BackgroundSkilled adult readers, in contrast to beginners, show no or little increase in reading latencies as a function of the number of letters in words up to seven letters. The information extraction strategy underlying such efficiency in word identification is still largely unknown, and methods that allow tracking of the letter information extraction through time between eye saccades are needed to fully address this question.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe present study examined the use of letter information during reading, by means of the Bubbles technique. Ten participants each read 5,000 five-letter French words sampled in space-time within a 200 ms window. On the temporal dimension, our results show that two moments are especially important during the information extraction process. On the spatial dimension, we found a bias for the upper half of words. We also show for the first time that letter positions four, one, and three are particularly important for the identification of five-letter words.Conclusions/SignificanceOur findings are consistent with either a partially parallel reading strategy or an optimal serial reading strategy. We show using computer simulations that this serial reading strategy predicts an absence of a word-length effect for words from four- to seven letters in length. We believe that the Bubbles technique will play an important role in further examining the nature of reading between eye saccades.
Highlights
Gutenberg’s invention has democratized the written word to such an extent that it is estimated that nowadays the average English reader has been exposed to more than 100 million printed words before he reaches the age of 25 [1]
One fundamental issue on which current knowledge is lacking is the information extraction strategy underlying expert word identification, which is the focus of the present paper
We used the Bubbles technique to examine the extraction of visual information over the first 200 ms in a five-letter word reading task
Summary
Gutenberg’s invention has democratized the written word to such an extent that it is estimated that nowadays the average English reader has been exposed to more than 100 million printed words before he reaches the age of 25 [1]. As a result of this intense exposure, readers become experts, and word identification is made rapidly and effortlessly, typically with no or little cost of the number of letters for words containing less than seven letters [2,3,4]. One fundamental issue on which current knowledge is lacking is the information extraction strategy underlying expert word identification, which is the focus of the present paper. In contrast to beginners, show no or little increase in reading latencies as a function of the number of letters in words up to seven letters. The information extraction strategy underlying such efficiency in word identification is still largely unknown, and methods that allow tracking of the letter information extraction through time between eye saccades are needed to fully address this question
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