Perceptual Span Research Articles

The role of perceptual and word identification spans in reading efficiency: Evidence from hearing and deaf readers.

Theories of reading posit that decisions about "where" and "when" to move the eyes are driven by visual and linguistic factors, extracted from the perceptual span and word identification span, respectively. We tested this hypothesized dissociation by masking, outside of a visible window, either the spaces between the words (to assess the perceptual span, Experiment 1) or the letters within the words (to assess the word identification span, Experiment 2). We also investigated whether deaf readers' previously reported larger reading span was specifically linked to one of these spans. We analyzed reading rate to test overall reading efficiency, as well as average saccade length to test "where" decisions and average fixation duration to test "when" decisions. Both hearing and deaf readers' perceptual spans extended between 10 and 14 characters, and their word identification spans extended to eight characters to the right of fixation. Despite similar sized rightward spans, deaf readers read more efficiently overall and showed a larger increase in reading rate when leftward text was available, suggesting they attend more to leftward information. Neither rightward span was specifically related to where or when decisions for either group. Our results challenge the assumed dissociation between type of reading span and type of saccade decision and indicate that reading efficiency requires access to both perceptual and linguistic information in the parafovea. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Readers with trait anxiety have poor reading efficiency: evidence from the perceptual span in Chinese reading

Readers with trait anxiety have poor reading efficiency: evidence from the perceptual span in Chinese reading

The perceptual span in dyslexic reading and visual search.

Many studies have attempted to identify the root cause of dyslexia. Different theories of dyslexia have proposed either a phonological, attentional, or visual deficit. While research has used eye-tracking to study dyslexia, only two previous studies have used the moving-window paradigm to explore the perceptual span in dyslexic reading, and none have done so in visual search. The present study analysed the perceptual span using both reading and visual search tasks to identify language-independent attentional impairments in dyslexics. We found equivocal evidence that the perceptual span was impaired in dyslexic reading and no evidence of impairment in visual search. However, dyslexic participants did show deficits in the visual search task, with lower search accuracy and shorter saccades compared with controls. These results lend support for a visual, rather than attentional or phonological, account of dyslexia.

FinMem: A Performance-Enhanced LLM Trading Agent with Layered Memory and Character Design

Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have exhibited notable efficacy in question-answering (QA) tasks across diverse domains. Their prowess in integrating extensive web knowledge has fueled interest in developing LLM-based autonomous agents. While LLMs are efficient in decoding human instructions and deriving solutions by holistically processing historical inputs, transitioning to purpose-driven agents requires a supplementary rational architecture to process multi-source information, establish reasoning chains, and prioritize critical tasks. Addressing this, we introduce FinMem, a novel LLM-based agent framework devised for financial decision-making. It encompasses three core modules: Profiling, to customize the agent's characteristics; Memory, with layered message processing, to aid the agent in assimilating hierarchical financial data; and Decision-making, to convert insights gained from memories into investment decisions. Notably, FinMem's memory module aligns closely with the cognitive structure of human traders, offering robust interpretability and real-time tuning. Its adjustable cognitive span allows for the retention of critical information beyond human perceptual limits, thereby enhancing trading outcomes. This framework enables the agent to self-evolve its professional knowledge, react agilely to new investment cues, and continuously refine trading decisions in the volatile financial environment. We first compare FinMem with various algorithmic agents on a scalable real-world financial dataset, underscoring its leading trading performance in stocks. We then fine-tuned the agent's perceptual span and character setting to achieve a significantly enhanced trading performance. Collectively, FinMem presents a cutting-edge LLM agent framework for automated trading, boosting cumulative investment returns.

Perceptual span in Mongolian text reading

Perceptual span in Mongolian text reading

Direction-specific reading experience shapes perceptual span.

Perceptual span in reading, the spatial extent for effective information extraction during a single fixation, provides a critical foundation to all studies for sentence reading. However, it is not understood fully how the perceptual span is influenced by direction-specific reading experience. Traditional Chinese sentences can be written horizontally from left to right or vertically downward, offering the best opportunity to explore readers' perceptual span in different text directions, free of possible confounding with language proficiency and cross-participant differences. Using a within-item and within-subject design, eye movements of traditional Chinese readers were recorded during their reading of horizontally and vertically presented sentences. Additionally, regardless of text direction, a gaze-contingent moving-window technique was adopted to restrict visible texts within a virtual window that moved in synchrony with the reader's eye gaze, while characters outside the window were masked. Among several critical results, most importantly, asymptotic reading performance was observed in a smaller window condition for vertical reading than for horizontal reading, suggesting an overall smaller perceptual span in the former case. In addition, the size of the vertical perceptual span increased as a function of the readers' familiarity with vertical text. We conclude that factors beyond orthographic complexity and readers' language proficiency can influence the way in which humans read. Readers' direction-specific perceptual experiences can influence their perceptual span. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Executive functioning predicts development of reading skill and perceptual span seven years later

What is the role of executive functions in longitudinally predicting reading success in general and perceptual-span size in particular? We present two new waves of our sequential-cohort longitudinal study of perceptual-span development, including five waves totally spanning grades 1 to 10. Using nonlinear mixed effects growth-curve modeling we here show that executive functioning measured in the early primary-school years predicts reading performance seven years later, even if controlled for initial reading performance. Moreover, the two variables exerted an interactive influence, suggesting mutual benefit. Effects of initial executive functioning on the final perceptual span were even more pronounced than on reading rate, suggesting a substantial contribution of executive processes to perceptual-span development. Perceptual-span development is critical for successful reading: The initial reading-rate difference between slower and faster readers diverged at the point when perceptual-span development was fastest, and stabilized at inflated differences thereafter. In an educational setting, early tests of executive functioning may be useful for identifying children who are likely to need intervention to become proficient readers.

Schizotypy and perceptual span in a non-clinical sample: a virtual reality study

ABSTRACT Introduction Individuals with high schizotypy or schizophrenia exhibit difficulties in distributing their attention across space, leading to a reduction in their “perceptual span” – the extent of visual space that can be attended to at once. In this study, we aim to explore the correlation between schizotypy and perceptual span in a non-clinical sample to investigate whether perceptual span correlates with schizotypy across its range. Methods Schizotypy was assessed in fifty-five participants using the Schizotypy Personality Questionnaire (SPQ; Raine, 1991). Participants were required to attend to two dynamic targets displayed in a head-mounted virtual reality display. Perceptual span was estimated as the lateral angle of separation between the two targets beyond which performance in the task dropped to threshold. Results Participants with higher schizotypy scores performed significantly worse on the task. Of all the factors associated with schizotypy, the shared variance between Disorganisation and Cognitive/Perceptual Factors was most predictive of task performance. Conclusion The results support the hypothesis that schizotypy predicts perceptual span in non-clinical samples. Furthermore, the demonstration of a reduced perceptual span in individuals with higher trait schizotypy shows that variations in an individual’s capacity to divide attention across space can be accurately captured using a virtual reality head-mounted display.

Classroom chronicles: through the eyeglasses of teachers at varying experience levels

IntroductionTeachers face the intricate task of managing diverse classroom situations, directly affecting student learning outcomes. Many preservice and beginning teachers, however, find classroom management challenging. Effective classroom management hinges on the teacher’s ability to notice and interpret visual cues that signal potential issues - a proficiency termed ‘professional vision.’MethodsIn this study, we used mobile eye-tracking glasses to assess the professional vision of 22 preservice, 17 beginning, and 19 experienced teachers as they instructed their classes.ResultsOur findings revealed no discernible differences in the efficiency of visual processing across varying teaching experience levels throughout the lesson. Interestingly, by the lesson’s end, preservice teachers demonstrated a slight uptick in fixation counts compared to the onset. As for perceptual span, overall teaching experience did not significantly influence the dispersion of fixations, though experienced teachers exhibited a more expansive visual span at the lesson’s commencement than its conclusion. In examining mental effort, teaching experience did not notably impact the average fixation durations. Yet, preservice teachers registered a subtle decrease in fixation durations as the lesson progressed to its end. In conclusion, this study showed that professional vision manifests differently across teaching experience levels.DiscussionGiven its nuanced influence on classroom management and student engagement shown in prior research, our study underscores its importance in pedagogical training.

Perceptual span can explain stimulus-specific cultural differences in visual search

Perceptual span can explain stimulus-specific cultural differences in visual search

The perceptual span in traditional Chinese

AbstractThe present study aimed at examining the perceptual span, the visual field area for information extraction within a single fixation, during the reading of traditional Chinese sentences. Native traditional Chinese readers’ eye-movements were recorded as they read sentences that were presented using a gaze-contingent technique, in which legible text was restricted within a window that moved in synchrony with the eyes, while characters outside the window were masked. Comparisons of the window conditions with a baseline condition in which no viewing constraint was applied showed that when the window revealed one previous character and three upcoming characters around the current fixation, reading speed and oculomotor activities reached peak performance. Compared to previous results with simplified Chinese reading, based on a similar set of materials, traditional Chinese exhibits a reduction of the perceptual span. We suggest that the visual complexity of a writing system likely influences the perceptual span during reading.

Eye movements and the perceptual span in disordered reading: A comparison of schizophrenia and dyslexia

Increasing evidence of a common neurodevelopmental etiology between schizophrenia and developmental dyslexia suggests that neurocognitive functions, such as reading, may be similarly disrupted. However, direct comparisons of reading performance in these disorders have yet to be conducted. To address this gap in the literature, we employed a gaze-contingent moving window paradigm to examine sentence-level reading fluency and perceptual span (breadth of parafoveal processing) in adults with schizophrenia (dataset from Whitford et al., 2013) and psychiatrically healthy adults with dyslexia (newly collected dataset). We found that the schizophrenia and dyslexia groups exhibited similar reductions in sentence-level reading fluency (e.g., slower reading rates, more regressions) compared to matched controls. Similar reductions were also found for standardized language/reading and executive functioning measures. However, despite these reductions, the dyslexia group exhibited a larger perceptual span (greater parafoveal processing) than the schizophrenia group, potentially reflecting a disruption in normal foveal-parafoveal processing dynamics. Taken together, our findings suggest that reading and reading-related functions are largely similarly disrupted in schizophrenia and dyslexia, providing additional support for a common neurodevelopmental etiology.

Lexical processing across the visual field.

This article reports six experiments in which participants made speeded binary decisions about letter strings that were displayed for 100 versus 300 ms at different retinal eccentricities in the left versus right visual field to examine how these variables and task demands influence word-identification accuracy and latency. Across the experiments, lexical-processing performance decreased with eccentricity, but to a lesser degree for words displayed in the right visual field, replicating previous reports. However, the effect of eccentricity was attenuated for the two tasks that required "deep" semantic judgments (e.g., discriminating words that referenced animals vs. objects) relative to the tasks that required "shallow" letter and/or lexical processing (e.g., detecting words containing a pre-specified target letter, discriminating words from nonwords). These results suggest that lexical and supra-lexical knowledge play a significant role in supporting lexical processing, especially at greater eccentricities, thereby allowing readers to extend the visual span, or region of effective letter processing, into the perceptual span, or region of useful information extraction. The broader theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to existing and future models of reading. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Proficient L2 readers do not have a risky reading strategy

Abstract Proficient first-language (L1) readers of alphabetic languages that are read left-to-right typically have a perceptual span of 3–4 characters to the left and 14–15 characters to the right of the foveal fixation. Given that second-language (L2) processing requires more cognitive resources, we hypothesize that L2ers will have a smaller perceptual span than L1ers, and may rely on a compensatory risky reading strategy with a more symmetrical perceptual span similar to that seen in older L1 adults. Here, we test the size and symmetry of the perceptual span in German L1/English L2ers reading in English. We manipulate the amount of information available (3,6,9 characters-left/3,9,15 characters-right) during reading, and also account for the influence of English skills. Results show that L2ers benefit from an increase of window size from 3 to 6 characters to the left, and from 3 to 9 characters to the right, with higher-skilled L2ers further benefiting from an increase to 15 characters to the right. Contrary to our hypothesis, proficient L2ers exhibit an asymmetric perceptual span similar to college-aged L1ers and do not employ a compensatory risky reading strategy. This suggests that L1 and L2 language processing are not qualitatively different, but are rather modulated by individual differences.

How information within the perceptual span guides visual search and aids perception

We explore the guiding effect of task-related information appearing within the perceptual span on visual search based on elements such as the range of effective information attention within the perceptual span and the orientation of task-related objects. In the first experiment, we recorded reaction time and eye movement data of 48 subjects performing a visual search task for target information in the navigation interface and divided them into four experimental groups according to the perceptual span (within or outside the range) and orientation (left or right) of the task-related information. The experimental results showed that: (a) task-related information appearing within the perceptual span had a guiding effect on target search; and (b) the right side closer to the target in task search have better performance in guiding. In the second experiment, eye-movement experiments of the navigation interface based on the eye-movement processing theoretical model of linguistics showed that: (a) within the perceptual span, the shifting of attention causing eye movements (saccade) and brings gaze into the area of interest, and (b) the perceptual span moves with attention shifts. This study provides evidence for cognitive processing of information responses within the perceptual span and dynamic adjustment of perceptual span location and provides a reliable method for effective information presentation and visual layout in navigation interfaces, with a view to providing reference and learning for related studies.

Aging Effects on Perceptual Reading Span: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Study

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate how aging influences the perceptual span and reading through online reading measurement variables using an eye-tracking paradigm. Methods: This study had a total of 38 participants including 20 normal younger and 18 older adults. Offline (reading comprehension accuracy) and online (words per second, mean fixation duration) measurement variables were analyzed through sentence comprehension questions and perceptual span measurement tasks. Results: 1) There were not significant differences between the older adults and younger adults in reading comprehension accuracy. There was no cognitive demand due to the low difficulty of the task, and it did not affect the reading comprehension accuracy of each group. 2) There were significant differences between the older adults and younger adults in both words per second and mean fixation duration. The older group showed a decrease in encoding ability due to the normal aging process. Additionally, the performance of words per second and mean fixation duration was significantly lower under the one fixated word condition (1W) in both groups. 3) In the case of mean fixation duration, the older group fixed their gaze longer than the younger. The older group showed greater difficulty under the 1W condition when the cognitive load was increased by presenting limited language information. Conclusion: This study was intended to examine the perceptual span of older adults and the level which shows the aging-effect concretely. It was possible to predict that the perceptual span of the younger group was between one or two words to the right of the fixated word (W+1 and W+2), and that of the elderly was W+1.

Perceptual span in reading Aksharic Kannada

Perceptual span in reading Aksharic Kannada

The perceptual span is dynamically adjusted in response to foveal load by beginning readers.

The perceptual span describes the size of the visual field from which information is obtained during a fixation in reading. Its size depends on characteristics of writing system and reader, but-according to the foveal load hypothesis-it is also adjusted dynamically as a function of lexical processing difficulty. Using the moving window paradigm to manipulate the amount of preview, here we directly test whether the perceptual span shrinks as foveal word difficulty increases. We computed the momentary size of the span from word-based eye-movement measures as a function of foveal word frequency, allowing us to separately describe the perceptual span for information affecting spatial saccade targeting and temporal saccade execution. First fixation duration and gaze duration on the upcoming (parafoveal) word N + 1 were significantly shorter when the current (foveal) word N was more frequent. We show that the word frequency effect is modulated by window size. Fixation durations on word N + 1 decreased with high-frequency words N, but only for large windows, that is, when sufficient parafoveal preview was available. This provides strong support for the foveal load hypothesis. To investigate the development of the foveal load effect, we analyzed data from three waves of a longitudinal study on the perceptual span with German children in Grades 1 to 6. Perceptual span adjustment emerged early in development at around second grade and remained stable in later grades. We conclude that the local modulation of the perceptual span indicates a general cognitive process, perhaps an attentional gradient with rapid readjustment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Progress of Eye Movement Research in Bilingual Reading of Ethnic Minorities

At present, there are few eye movement studies on Bilingual Reading of ethnic minorities. This paper combs the eye movement studies of Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uygur reading mother tongue and Chinese, and puts forward the future research ideas: To investigate the reverse reading of Chinese texts by Uygur native speakers, and the reading perceptual span of Mongolian reading of Mongolian primary school students.

Supplemental Material for The Perceptual Span Is Dynamically Adjusted in Response to Foveal Load by Beginning Readers

Supplemental Material for The Perceptual Span Is Dynamically Adjusted in Response to Foveal Load by Beginning Readers