Eye Movements And The Perceptual Span Of Different Graders In Chinese Reading

The perceptual span is the range of available information that reader can beobtained in reading. This is one of the basic problems in reading research.Eye-movement-contingent display changes technique have been used to study theperceptual span in different languages. It was found that the perceptual span wouldchange because of the difference of writing systems.In this research,eye-movement-contingent display changes technique was used to study thedevelopmental trend of perceptual span in Chinese reading.The present experiment was 3 (three grades)×8 (8 window sizes) mixed design.One independent variable was the size of visible window, which had 8 levels. Anotherone was the grades,which included fifth-,eighth- and eleventh-grade students.Thedependent variable was first fixation duration,gaze duration,mean first pass readingtime per character, mean fixation duration and mean saccade size. ANOVAs wereapplied to explore the developmental tendency of oculomotor activity in normalChinese reading. The Simple Effect Analyses and Post hoc t tests were used toascertain the developmental trends of the perceptual span in Chinese readers. Theresults were as follows:(1) The reading ability affected the oculomotor activity in reading. With theincrease of reading ability, the oculomotor activity would become more efficient.(2) The size of perceptual span of fifth-grade readers extended 1 character to theleft of the fixated character and 2 or 3 characters to its right. Thc size of perceptualspan of eighth-grade one was about 1 or 2 characters to the left of the fixatedcharacter and 2 or 3 characters to its right. The size of perceptual span ofeleventh-grade one extended 1 or 2 characters to the left of the fixated character and 3or 4 characters to its right. So the perceptual span would be enlarged as the subjectsgrew.(3) The perceptual span was asymmetric in Chinese reading and the right size of perceptual span was larger than the left one. But the asymmetry could change notbecause of the development of the reading ability.(4) The perceptual span of Chinese reader was larger than the size ofright-directed saccades.