Previous research indicates that removing initial strokes from Chinese characters makes them harder to read than removing final or internal ones. In the present study, we examined the contribution of important components to character configuration via singular value decomposition. The results indicated that when the least important segments, which…

Recent research has shown contextual diversity (i.e., the number of passages in which a given word appears) to be a reliable predictor of word processing difficulty. It has also been demonstrated that word-frequency has little or no effect on word recognition speed when accounting for contextual diversity in isolated word processing tasks. An…

A visual mask was moved across text in synchrony with readers' eye movements. The size was varied so that either information in foveal or parafoveal vision was masked. Most visual information necessary for reading can be acquired during the first 50 msec that information is available during an eye fixation. (Author/RD)

Presents four experiments comparing the perceptual span in second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade readers and skilled adult readers. Suggests that the size of perceptual span is variable and influenced by text difficulty. Concludes that the size of perceptual span does not cause slow reading rates in beginning readers. (Author/DR)

The functions of spaces between words in adult reading of text were investigated in three experiments. Results were consistent with a two-process theory in which filling parafoveal spaces disrupts guidance of the next eye movement and filling foveal spaces disrupts processing of the fixated word as well. (Author/RD)