Abstract
This study investigated the relationship between reading speed and oculo-motor parameters when normally sighted observers had to read single sentences with an artificial macular scotoma. Using multiple regression analysis, our main result shows that two significant predictors, number of saccades per sentence followed by average fixation duration, account for 94% of reading speed variance: reading speed decreases when number of saccades and fixation duration increase. The number of letters per forward saccade (L/FS), which was measured directly in contrast to previous studies, is not a significant predictor. The results suggest that, independently of the size of saccades, some or all portions of a sentence are temporally integrated across an increasing number of fixations as reading speed is reduced.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1870-1878 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Vision Research |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 18 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This project was partly supported by a ‘Fondation de l’Avenir’ grant. The first author was supported by “Retina France”, the second author by the CNRS (BDI) and the third author by a French Ministry Ph.D. grant (MRT). We thank Anna Montagnini for her helpful comments.
Keywords
- AMD
- Central field loss
- Fixations
- Low vision
- Peripheral vision
- Reading
- Saccades
- Simulated scotoma