Using E-Z Reader to Examine the Concurrent Development of Eye-Movement Control and Reading Skill.

Erik Reichle, Simon Liversedge, Denis Drieghe, Hazel Blythe, Holly Joseph, Sarah White, Keith Rayner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

117 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Compared to skilled adult readers, children typically make more fixations that are longer in duration, shorter saccades, and more regressions, thus reading more slowly (Blythe & Joseph, 2011). Recent attempts to understand the reasons for these differences have discovered some similarities (e.g., children and adults target their saccades similarly; Joseph, Liversedge, Blythe, White, & Rayner, 2009) and some differences (e.g., children’s fixation durations are more affected by lexical variables; Blythe, Liversedge, Joseph, White, & Rayner, 2009) that have yet to be explained. In this article, the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading (Reichle, 2011, Reichle et al., 1998) is used to simulate various eye-movement phenomena in adults vs. children in order to evaluate hypotheses about the concurrent development of reading skill and eye-movement behavior. These simulations suggest that the primary difference between children and adults is their rate of lexical processing, and that different rates of (post-lexical) language processing may also contribute to some phenomena (e.g., children’s slower detection of semantic anomalies; Joseph et al., 2008). The theoretical implications of this hypothesis are discussed, including possible alternative accounts of these developmental changes, how reading skill and eye movements change across the entire lifespan (e.g., college-aged vs. older readers), and individual differences in reading ability.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)110-149
JournalDevelopmental Review
Volume33
Issue number2
Early online date25 Apr 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Computer model
  • Eye movements
  • E-Z Reader
  • Lexical access
  • Reading
  • Reading skill

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Using E-Z Reader to Examine the Concurrent Development of Eye-Movement Control and Reading Skill.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this