EYE MOVEMENTS DURING READING OF REGULAR AND PHRASE-SEGMENTED TEXTS

An experiment was conducted to examine eye movements during reading of regular and phrase- segmented texts. Participants read a set of either regularly formatted or phrase-segmented texts as eye movements were monitored. Phrase-segmented texts had variably larger spaces between algorithmically defined phrases , as controlled by the text formatting program, ReadSmart . Each text was followed by comprehension questions. The effect of individual differences (high- vs. low-performance readers) and text formatting (regular vs. phrase- segmented) was studied by examination of readers eye movement patterns. It was hypothesized that high- and low-performance readers eye movements would differ for regular text reading in replication of previous research, and that low-performance readers eye movements for phrase-segmented texts would resemble those of high-performance readers in the same condition. Results revealed differences between high- and low-performance readers eye movements for regular texts, but not for phrase- segmented texts. This was due to changes in eye movement measures across text conditions for low- performance readers only.

Autorentext

Joël Magloire, Ph.D., M.S., CCC-SLP is an assistant professor in the Communication Arts and Sciences Department at CUNY Bronx Community College. Dr. Magloire is also a certified speech- language pathologist. He has conducted research on language processing in bilingualism, speech production, and normal/disordered reading processes.