Previous research has revealed conflicting results with regard to the role of the magnocellular visual system in reading and dyslexia. In order to investigate this further, the present study examined the relationship between performance on two magnocellular tasks (temporal gap detection and coherent motion), reading rate (oral and silent), and…

This research synthesis examines whether the association between print exposure and components of reading grows stronger across development. We meta-analyzed 99 studies (N = 7,669) that focused on leisure time reading of (a) preschoolers and kindergartners, (b) children attending Grades 1-12, and (c) college and university students. For all…

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 studies reported here examined the role of orthographic regularity and summed positional frequency in the perception of letter strings. College sophomores and sixth graders were asked to indicate whether or not a target letter was present in a six-letter string. Orthographic regularity and summed positional frequency were found to have no…

Two experiments were designed to study the relative importance of various letter segments in letter recognition. One experiment was conducted with 24 subjects and the English alphabet, the other with 15 subjects and the Hebrew alphabet. In each experiment a letter was presented for identification, but was preceded by a brief presentation of either…

The hypothesis that word context reduces visual rather than acoustic confusion between possible targets was tested in a series of experiments. All involved tachistoscopic presentation of letter strings followed by a pattern mask. Data from eight college students showed that target letters that are confusable only visually and acoustically…

A study investigated the size of the perceptual span within which adults use visual information to distinguish among letters as they read. The eye movements of fifteen college students were monitored as they read passages from a cathode-ray tube. On occasional fixations, letters in specified visual regions were replaced by other letters. The…

Twenty English-Japanese bilingual subjects were given the following reading tasks: timed, silent reading of passages in English and Japanese followed by comprehension tests and recognition of tachistoscopic presentations of twenty words in each language. The amount of reading the subjects had done in English and Japanese was assessed in an…