Biomedical subjects

A Pollatsek

Publications and source records attributed to A Pollatsek.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

Unspaced text interferes with both word identification and eye movement control.

Subjects read either normal text, text in which the space information between words was absent (either spaces were removed filled with x), or text in which spaces were preserved but the words were flanked by x. In two experiments, reading rate decreased by approx. 50% when space information was not available, suggesting that reading unspaced text is relatively difficult. The removal of space information increased the effect of word frequency on the fixation times for selected target words, indicating that word identification was interfered with by the lack of spaces. In addition, removal of space information influenced the initial landing positions on words, indicating that eye movement control was affected by the absence of spaces. Further analyses were conducted that explored the relationship between these two effects.

Eye Movements↗

PubMed1998

The effects of neighborhood frequency in reading and lexical decision.

To test the effect of the frequency of orthographic "neighbors" on the identification of a printed word, two sets of words were constructed (equated on the number of neighbors, word frequency, and number of letters); in one set, the words had no higher frequency neighbors and in the other set, they had at least one higher frequency neighbor. Identification was slower for the latter set. In Experiment 1, this was indexed by longer response times in a lexical decision task. In Experiment 2, the target words were embedded in sentences, and slower identification was indexed by disruptions in reading: more regressions back to the words with higher frequency neighbors and longer fixations on the text immediately following these words. The latter results indicate that a higher frequency neighbor affects relatively late stages of lexical access, an interpretation consistent with both activation-verification and interactive activation models.

Eye Movements↗

PubMed1998

Phonological codes and eye movements in reading.

A number of recent studies using eye movement data have yielded evidence suggesting that phonological codes are activated early in an eye fixation. However, experiments reported by M. Daneman and E. Reingold (1993; M. Daneman, E. M. Reingold, & M. Davidson, 1995) yielded data that led them to argue that phonological codes are primarily activated after lexical access has occurred. In this study, 3 experiments were carried out that were conceptually similar to those of M. Daneman and E. Reingold, and the resulting data supported the position that phonological codes are activated very early in an eye fixation.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Evidence for the use of assembled phonology in accessing the meaning of printed words.

The role of assembled phonology in visual word recognition was investigated using a task in which participants judged whether 2 words (e.g., PILLOW-BEAD) were semantically related. Of primary interest was whether it would be more difficult to respond "no" to "false homophones" (e.g., BEAD) of words (BED) that are semantically related to target words than to orthographic controls (BEND). (BEAD is a false homophone of BED because-EAD can be pronounced /epsilon d/.) In Experiment 1, there was an interference effect in the response time data, but not in the error data. These results were replicated in a 2nd experiment in which a parafoveal preview was provided for the 2nd word of the pair. A 3rd experiment ruled out explanations of the false homophone effect in terms of inconsistency in spelling-to-sound mappings or inadequate spelling knowledge. It is argued that assembled phonological representations activate meaning in visual word recognition.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Toward a model of eye movement control in reading.

The authors present several versions of a general model, titled the E-Z Reader model, of eye movement control in reading. The major goal of the modeling is to relate cognitive processing (specifically aspects of lexical access) to eye movements in reading. The earliest and simplest versions of the model (E-Z Readers 1 and 2) merely attempt to explain the total time spent on a word before moving forward (the gaze duration) and the probability of fixating a word; later versions (E-Z Readers 3-5) also attempt to explain the durations of individual fixations on individual words and the number of fixations on individual words. The final version (E-Z Reader 5) appears to be psychologically plausible and gives a good account of many phenomena in reading. It is also a good tool for analyzing eye movement data in reading. Limitations of the model and directions for future research are also discussed.

Attention↗

PubMed1996

Reading unspaced text is not easy: comments on the implications of Epelboim et al.'s (1994) study for models of eye movement control in reading.

Epelboim, Booth, and Steinman [1994 Vision Research, 34, 1735-1766] recently published an article in this journal in which they argued that "unspaced text is relatively easy to read" (p. 1760). From this they concluded that the spaces between words "are relatively unimportant for guiding reading eye movements" (p. 1760). We have serious reservations concerning these conclusions. In this letter we argue that (1) reading unspaced text is not easy for most readers and (2) there are more diagnostic ways to examine the role of spacing. We also comment on the implications for models of eye movements in reading.

Eye Movements↗

PubMed1995

On the use of counterbalanced designs in cognitive research: a suggestion for a better and more powerful analysis.

Counterbalanced designs are ubiquitous in cognitive psychology. Researchers, however, rarely perform optimal analyses of these designs and, as a result, reduce the power of their experiments. In the context of a simple priming experiment, several idealized data sets are used to illustrate the possible costs of ignoring counterbalancing, and recommendations are made for more appropriate analyses. These recommendations apply to assessment of both reliability of effects over subjects and reliability of effects over stimulus items.

Cognition↗

PubMed1994

Role of an abstract order schema in conceptual judgment.

Ss performed same-different judgments for which order information was logically irrelevant. In Experiments 1 and 2, the stimuli for the judgment task were derived from an ordered set of concepts from long-term memory (U.S. presidents ordered on the dimension of historical time); in Experiments 3 and 4 the stimuli were derived from two ordered sets of concepts. In the stimulus set for each experiment, there were several associate phrases for each concept and the task was to judge whether the phrases were paired with the same concept (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) or the same ordering (Experiment 4). The time to respond "different" decreased with the ordinal distance between the concepts even when the concepts belonged to different orderings. It is concluded that same-different judgments are based in part on amodal order information (i.e., not tied to any particular dimension). Two models of the implicated order schema are proposed and tested.

Humans↗

PubMed1993

Automatic access of semantic information by phonological codes in visual word recognition.

An important issue in reading research is the role of phonology in visual word recognition. This experiment demonstrated that naming time of a target word (e.g., nut) is facilitated more by a homophone of a semantic associate (e.g., beach) than by a visually similar control (e.g., bench). However, this priming effect from the homophone obtained only when the prime word was exposed for 50 ms and was followed by a pattern mask and not when it was exposed for 200 ms before the pattern mask. In contrast, the "appropriate" prime (e.g., beech) provided facilitation at both exposure durations. Because the priming was obtained with a stimulus onset asynchrony of 250 ms, these data provide support for Van Orden's (1987) verification model, which posits that meaning is accessed through the automatic activation of phonological information.

Attention↗

PubMed1993

The use of information below fixation in reading and in visual search.

Two experiments examined whether or not readers obtain useful information from below the currently fixated line. In Experiment 1, subjects read passages of text and the availability of visual information below the line fixated was manipulated using a variant of the moving window technique. Reading was no slower when there was no letter information below the fixated line than when there was full information below the fixated line. However, a condition which made the strings of letters below the fixated line less "wordlike" caused reading to be slowed down by about 6% relative to the other conditions. In Experiment 2, subjects searched for a target word through passages of text. Subjects occasionally detected targets below the line they were fixating; however, there was no clear evidence that the availability of information below the line made search more efficient. It thus appears that in reading (or in other tasks where words are being identified and the eyes move horizontally along a line of text), little visual information is extracted below the line of text fixated.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Phonological codes are used in integrating information across saccades in word identification and reading.

A major issue in reading is the extent to which phonological information is used in visual word perception. The present experiments demonstrated that phonological information acquired on 1 fixation from a word in the parafovea is used to help identify that word when it is later fixated. A homophone of a target word, when presented as a preview in the parafovea, facilitated processing of the target word seen on the next fixation more than a preview of a word matched with the homophone in visual similarity to the target word. This facilitation was observed both in the time to name an isolated target word and in the fixation time on the target word while silently reading a sentence; the preview was virtually never consciously identified in either task. Because the visual similarity of the preview to the target also plays a part in the facilitative effect on the preview, however, codes other than phonological codes are preserved across saccades.

Humans↗

PubMed1992

Identification of objects in scenes: the role of scene background in object naming.

Research with brief presentations of scenes has indicated that scene context facilitates object identification. In the present experiments we used a paradigm in which an object in a scene is "wiggled"--drawing both attention and an eye fixation to itself--and then named. Thus the effect of scene context on object identification can be examined in a situation in which the target object is fixated and hence is fully visible. Experiment 1 indicated that a scene background that was episodically consistent with a target object facilitated the speed of naming. In Experiments 2 and 3, we investigated the time course of scene background information acquisition using display changes contingent on eye movements to the target object. The results from Experiment 2 were inconclusive; however, Experiment 3 demonstrated that scene background information present only on either the first or second fixation on a scene significantly affected naming time. Thus background information appears to be both extracted and able to affect object identification continuously during scene viewing.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Eye movements and scene perception.

Research on eye movements and scene perception is reviewed. Following an initial discussion of some basic facts about eye movements and perception, the following topics are discussed: (I) the span of effective vision during scene perception, (2) the role of eye movements in scene perception, (3) integration of information across saccades, (4) scene context, object identification and eye movements, and (5) the control of eye movements. The relationship of eye movements during reading to eye movements during scene perception is considered. A preliminary model of eye movement control in scene perception is described and directions for future research are suggested.

Attention↗

PubMed1991

Word identification in isolation and in context by college dyslexic students.

College dyslexic students (DYS) were compared to chronological age (CA)-matched and to reading age (RA)-matched control groups on tasks assessing naming of words and nonwords, regular and irregular words, and the use of context in word identification. The DYS group had the slowest naming latency for words in all tasks. In addition, they had extreme difficulty in naming nonwords, which in terms of the dual-route model for word recognition indicates impairment in the indirect route to the lexicon. However, they displayed a regularity effect in reading regular and irregular words and thus apparently utilized the indirect route in reading words. Correlational data supported the conclusion that the data are in conflict with the traditional dual-route model, and an alternative conceptualization is suggested. The use of context is discussed in terms of the interactive-compensatory model (Stanovich, 1980) and findings were generally supportive of the model. The DYS subjects of the present study appeared to be different from the RA controls and their performance did not support a developmental-lag model for explaining their reading problems.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Role of spatial location in integration of pictorial information across saccades.

Identification of a fixated object in a visual display is facilitated by integrating information from a preview of that object in the periphery with information extracted on the subsequent foveal fixation (Pollatsek, Rayner, & Collins, 1984). These experiments investigated the extent to which this integration is dependent on the spatial location of the information remaining constant. Two preview objects were presented in the periphery; Ss fixated that region and named a single target object that appeared in the same spatial location in which one of the two preview objects had been presented. Of primary interest was the facilitative effect when a preview object was identical to the target object as a function of whether they were in the same spatial location. The major finding was that although there was a small effect of switching, there was still a substantial preview benefit even when the location of the identical object switched. In addition, the switching effect did not interact with the level of identity between the preview and target. There was also a preview benefit in conditions in which there were no eye movements and the preview and target objects were at least 5 degrees apart. Thus, the data indicate that the process object identification is relatively insensitive to location information and that object information and location information are coded fairly independently.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Eye movement guidance in reading: the role of parafoveal letter and space information.

The relation between parafoveal letter and space information in eye movement guidance during reading was investigated in 2 experiments. Contingent upon the reader's fixation, the type of parafoveal information available to the right of fixation was varied by (a) space information only, (b) space information with letter information added at some delay, or (c) letter and space information simultaneously. In addition, the onset of the relevant parafoveal information was delayed between 0 and 250 ms into the fixation. The time course of processing the 2 types of information (letters or spaces) differed, as did the nature of their impact on the eye movement record. Although both letter and space information influenced saccade length and initial landing positions within words, only letter information had an effect on fixation duration. In addition, fixation duration was affected only by information entering within the first 50 ms of the fixation, whereas saccade length was affected by information arriving at any time during the fixation. The results are consistent with a model of eye movement control in which 2 independent processes are operating in tandem to determine when and where to move the eyes during reading.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Effect of background information on object identification.

Previous research using briefly presented displays has indicated that objects in a coherent scene are easier to identify than are objects in incoherent backgrounds. Of interest is whether the identification of the target object depends on the identification of the scene or the identification of other diagnostic objects in the scene. Experiment 1 indicated objects are more difficult to identify when located in an "episodically" inconsistent background even when the same diagnostic objects are present in both inconsistent and consistent backgrounds. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the degree to which noncued (cohort) objects are consistent with the target object has no effect on the object identification task. Experiment 3 showed consistent episodic background information facilitated object identification and inconsistent episodic background information did not interfere relative to "nonsense" backgrounds roughly equated on visual characteristics. Implications for models of scene perception are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Covert attention and eye movements during reading.

Eye movements were monitored during the reading of spatially transformed text in order to examine covert attentional processes in reading. In some conditions, the sequence of letters within a word was congruent with (i.e. in the same direction as) the sequence of words in the sentence; in other conditions the direction of letters within words and the direction of words in the sentence were incongruent. In addition, the window of visible text was varied so that in some conditions only the fixated word (and all preceding words) were visible, whereas in other conditions the fixated word and the succeeding word were both visible. Readers were able to extract more parafoveal information from text when the words themselves were normal than when the letters within the words were transformed. However, with practice, readers were able to use some parafoveal information even when the words were transformed. The most important finding was that the congruity of the word and letter order had no reliable effect on the ability to extract parafoveal information and influenced reading performance only when the words themselves were normal. We conclude that covert attention in reading is not a letter-by-letter scan that sweeps across the page, but either an asymmetric spotlight held constant on each fixation or a shifting of an attentional spotlight extending across multiletter units (possibly words) with the direction of shifts of attention closely coupled to the direction of eye movements.

Attention↗