This proposal continues a major investigation of the development of perception and attention as it occurs in children learning to read. Three lines of activity are planned: 1. Continuing the longitudinal collection of children's eye movement data as they read long passages, yielding about 12,000 eye fixations per child per year, and describing both global and local characteristics of the data and how it changes with development. 2. Exploring the psychological bases for the developmental changes taking place by relating these changes to the results of extensive testing of the children's reading and their perceptual and cognitive characteristics. In addition, eye movement patterns will be related to local language variables, concurrent oral reading, and text and task variables. 3. Investigating specific aspects of the perceptual processing taking place during word identification in reading through the use of eye movement contingent display control techniques. Issues include the allocation of attention, control of fixation patterns, and functional stimulus in identifying words, with a focus on questions of development and individual differences.
| McConkie, G W; Kerr, P W; Reddix, M D et al. (1989) Eye movement control during reading: II. Frequency of refixating a word. Percept Psychophys 46:245-53 |
