Splintered Text and Eye Movements in Reading

By : Arpana Pandey, Prakash Padakannaya

Page No: 203-209

Abstract
In normal reading eyes move on open text running on sheets of paper in an auto regulated manner depending on the overall complexity of text. The effective visual field, from which readers process information while fixating at a point, is called visual span. When the size of text available equals or exceeds the size of perceptual span reading process goes on smoothly. However, when text is presented in small splinters reading gets hampered. In the present study we presented text in a window smaller than perceptual span and recorded how reading gets negatively affected. All the major measures of eye movement and reading time reflected how normal reading was hampered under reading condition with restricted visual field as compared to normal full-length sentence reading condition.

Authors :
Prakash Padakannaya : Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Mysore Manasagangotri, Mysore-570006, India
Arpana Pandey : Research Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Mysore Manasagangotri, Mysore-570006, India.