For more than 100 years, research on the psychology of reading has proliferated. In this article, the authors wish to help modern reading researchers understand the origins of the discipline and benefit from its history. This article draws heavily on Edmund Burke Huey's 1908 landmark volume "The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading,"…

A DOCTORAL DISSERTATION WHICH EXPLORES THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION IN READING IS REPORTED. THE FACTS REPORTED IN PERCEPTUAL RESEARCH ARE REALIGNED IN TERMS OF CERTAIN PREMISES OF GENERAL OPEN SYSTEMS THEORY AS UTILIZED BY THE SUBSTRATA-FACTOR THEORY AND THE PARTICULAR POINT OF VIEW OF THE INFORMATION THEORIST BROADBENT TO PRODUCE A NEW…

Discusses the effects on oculomotor behavior of variations of the physical attributes of text and similar effects from physical word cues processed in the reader's parafoveal vision. (HOD)

Presents computational and psychophysical evidence in support of a theory of one of the earliest stages of visual processing in reading--the isolation of words in text. (HOD)

G. Wolford's perturbation model of letter identification is designed to account for identification errors of briefly presented characters. Its chief assumptions are that features are extracted in parallel, that some of these features become perturbed or mislocalized, and that mislocalizations are more likely to occur in the direction of the fovea…

Fifteen college students read passages from a cathode-ray tube as their eye movements were monitored in a study that investigated the size of the visual region within which they used visual information to distinguish among letters as they read. (HOD)

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)

The research reviewed in this paper concerns the visual perceptual processes occurring as people are engaged in the act of reading. The issues that are examined include the control of eye movements, perception during a fixation, and perception across successive fixations. Consideration also is given to problems related to obtaining information…

A computer-based Eye-Movement Controlled Display System was developed for the study of perceptual processes in reading. Studies were conducted to identify the region from which skilled readers pick up various types of visual information during a fixation while reading. The results indicated that the subjects acquired word length pattern…

Good and poor student readers and adults read texts in normal format and with 13 spaces between words. Wide spacing improved comprehension for poor readers but did not affect their reading efficiency, while it substantially impaired the efficiency of the other groups. Text difficulty did not interact significantly with spacing. (SJL)

To investigate the relationship between the location of the words being read and the location of the eyes in the text, three experiments were conducted using the Disappearing Text Technique with college students. This was done by occasionally removing the text during reading and having the reader report the last word that had been read.…

Thirty-six college students read a portion of a contemporary novel presented on a cathode ray tube while their eye movements were being monitored and recorded in an effort to determine how soon after the onset of a fixation during reading the mind begins to deal with characteristics of the language being perceived. The passage contained a total of…