Written language differs fundamentally from spoken language, and reading consequently involves some skills with no obvious counterpart in spoken language processing. The objective of this project is to understand skills that are unique to reading. Comprehending text requires that readers obtain useful information from an extended set of spatially ordered words. This is accomplished by moving the eyes to different segments of text, and using the viewed text to identify the words. The project will employ state-of-the-art eye-recording technologies in conjunction with sophisticated text display manipulations to examine word recognition during individual eye fixations, how word recognition during a fixation is used to program an eye movement to new text, and how information obtained during one fixation is integrated with information obtained during prior and successive fixations so that a relatively cohesive accrual of information is accomplished over successive fixations. Results of the proposed work should define processes essential to skilled reading, and should have implications for understanding of reading abilities that may be unrelated to speech comprehension abilities. The studies should also have broad methodological ramifications, as eye movement measures are being used in a wide range of domains, including picture and scene perception, speech perception, memory retrieval, and in industrial testing.
