Elsevier

Vision Research

Volume 49, Issue 16, 12 August 2009, Pages 2078-2086
Vision Research

Word length and landing position effects during reading in children and adults

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2009.05.015Get rights and content
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Abstract

The present study examined the effects of word length on children’s eye movement behaviour when other variables were carefully controlled. Importantly, the results showed that word length influenced children’s reading times and fixation positions on words. Furthermore, children exhibited stronger word length effects than adults in gaze durations and refixations. Adults and children generally did not differ in initial landing positions, but did differ in refixation behaviour. Overall, the results indicated that while adults and children show similar effects of word length for early measures of eye movement behaviour, differences emerge in later measures.

Keywords

Reading
Children
Eye movements
Landing positions
Word length

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