Eyes lock on different letters when reading

min0 lee · 09-10-2007, 01:12 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL0793523920070910

Quote:

Mon Sep 10, 2007 4:35AM EDT
By Michael Kahn
YORK (Reuters) - When we read our eyes lock on to different letters in the same word instead of scanning a page smoothly from left to right as previously thought, researchers said on Monday.
Using sophisticated eye tracking equipment, the team looked at letters within a word and found that people combined parts of a word that were on average two letters apart, said Simon Liversedge, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Southampton.
The findings could lead to better methods of teaching children to read and offer remedial treatments for those with reading disorders such as dyslexia, said Liversedge, who presented his work at a meeting organized by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
"What I'm trying to understand is the relationship between the physiological processes that underpin human written language comprehension and their relationship with eye movements people make to read sentences," he said in a telephone interview.
Over the past 40 years scientists have studied eye movements and reading, with a general consensus that people look at the same letter within a word with both eyes, Liversedge said.
To test this, Liversedge and colleagues measured the reflections of a low-intensity infrared beam shone into a volunteer's eye when reading. This allowed the researchers to pinpoint exactly where the eye had fixated on a word.
Then they ran further tests to see why people did not have double vision from picking out individual letters and found that the brain fuses the two signals that come in from the different eyes into one clear image, Liversedge said.
"It had always been assumed that both eyes moved in perfect harmony and you looked at a word with just one fixation," he said. "Because of this assumption scientists looking at reading behavior have just measured one of the eyes because they assumed the eyes were doing the same thing."
The findings also add to a wealth of information about eye movements that scientists have built up over the years as they seek a better grasp of how we understand written language, Liversedge said.
They also help paint an overall picture of language comprehension that can one day benefit those with reading problems and disorders, he added.
"In order to fully understand what is going wrong in people with reading difficulties, we first need to understand what is involved in normal language comprehension," he said.

shiznit2169 · 09-10-2007, 04:05 PM

That's nothing new or surprising. It's a good way to help enhance your reading skills and be able to read faster. Here is a good example below.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

For those who cannot figure out this paragraph above,

Quote:

According to a researcher (sic) at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/

NeilPearson · 09-10-2007, 05:23 PM

Yaeh tihs is smotehnig we hvae kwnon for a lnog tmie

Mista · 09-10-2007, 05:50 PM

I never knew that but I read the above posts easy.

min0 lee · 09-10-2007, 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mista

I never knew that but I read the above posts easy.

I hd a tme wth ths one.

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09-10-2007, 05:23 PM	#3
NeilPearson Registered User Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 2,284	Yaeh tihs is smotehnig we hvae kwnon for a lnog tmie

09-10-2007, 05:50 PM	#4
Mista Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Adelaide Posts: 2,275	I never knew that but I read the above posts easy.