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Parafoveal magnification: visual acuity does not modulate the perceptual span in reading.

Miellet, S., O'Donnell, P. J. and Sereno, S. C., 2009. Parafoveal magnification: visual acuity does not modulate the perceptual span in reading. Psychological Science, 20 (6), 721 - 728 .

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DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02364.x

Abstract

Models of eye guidance in reading rely on the concept of the perceptual span-the amount of information perceived during a single eye fixation, which is considered to be a consequence of visual and attentional constraints. To directly investigate attentional mechanisms underlying the perceptual span, we implemented a new reading paradigm-parafoveal magnification (PM)-that compensates for how visual acuity drops off as a function of retinal eccentricity. On each fixation and in real time, parafoveal text is magnified to equalize its perceptual impact with that of concurrent foveal text. Experiment 1 demonstrated that PM does not increase the amount of text that is processed, supporting an attentional-based account of eye movements in reading. Experiment 2 explored a contentious issue that differentiates competing models of eye movement control and showed that, even when parafoveal information is enlarged, visual attention in reading is allocated in a serial fashion from word to word.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:0956-7976
Uncontrolled Keywords:Adult ; Attention ; Electrooculography ; Female ; Fixation, Ocular ; Fovea Centralis ; Humans ; Male ; Orientation ; Reading ; Saccades ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Size Perception ; Vision Disparity ; Visual Acuity ; Visual Fields ; Visual Perception ; Young Adult
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:22094
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:12 Jun 2015 10:58
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 13:51

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