Reading disappearing text: why do children refixate words?

Blythe, Hazel I., Häikiö, Tuomo, Bertram, Raymond, Liversedge, Simon P. and Hyönä, Jukka (2011) Reading disappearing text: why do children refixate words? Vision Research, 51 (1), 84-92. (doi:10.1016/j.visres.2010.10.003).

Abstract

We compared Finnish adults’ and children’s eye movements on long (8-letter) and short (4-letter) target words embedded in sentences, presented either normally or as disappearing text. When reading disappearing text, where refixations did not provide new information, the 8- to 9-year-old children made fewer refixations but more regressions back to long words compared to when reading normal text. This difference was not observed in the adults or 10- to 11-year-old children. We conclude that the younger children required a second visual sample on the long words, and they adapted their eye movement behaviour when reading disappearing text accordingly.

This record has no associated files available for download.

Contributors

Download statistics