Behavioral Momentum During a Continuous Reading Task: An Exploratory Study

Adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often fail to master literacy skills, in part because disruptive behaviors interfere with task engagement and persistence. The theory of behavioral momentum explains the persistence of behavior in the face of changing environmental conditions. The current exploratory study examined variables related to behavioral momentum in the context of a continuous reading task. Participants were three adolescents identified with EBD who were instructional on fifth-grade material. Results indicated that when participants read a third-grade paragraph immediately before a fifth-grade paragraph, they decreased the latency to initiate reading of the fifth-grade paragraph and increased words read correctly per minute on the first 10 words of the fifth-grade paragraph. Results are discussed in terms of the theory of behavioral momentum and the nature of interventions that may be developed to increase reading persistence.     

Normal acquisition of novel verbal information in amnesia.

Amnesic patients (n = 9) and normal subjects (n = 12) read lists of unique words, repeated words, unique nonwords, and repeated nonwords as quickly as possible. In the first experiment both groups of subjects read the lists of repeated items faster than the lists of unique items and improved at the same rate within each list. In the second experiment, subjects read four new lists of items and then reread the same four lists after a 10-min delay. The results replicated the findings from the first experiment and demonstrated in addition that the facilitated reading speed persisted across the delay. These results show that the acquisition of novel verbal information can be supported by nondeclarative (implicit) memory. It is suggested that facilitated reading speed for words and nonwords reflects changes in early-stage perceptual systems and that these changes occur independently of the brain structures damaged in amnesia.     

Detection errors onthe andand: Evidence for reading units larger than the word

In five experiments, subjects read lO0-word passages and circled instances of a given target letter, letter group, or word. In each case subjects made a disproportionate number of detection errors on the common function wordsthe andand. The predominance of errors on these two words was reduced for passages in which the words were placed in an inappropriate syntactic context and for passages in which word-group identification was disturbed by the use of mixed typecases or a list, rather than a paragraph, format. These effects for the wordand were not found for the control wordant. These results were taken as evidence that familiar word sequences may be read in units larger than the word, probably short syntactic phrases or word frames. A tentative model of the reading process consistent with these results is proposed.     

Context length and reading novel words: An eye‐movement investigation

The current study investigated the effects of context length on the processing of novel words. Participants read real adjectives or novel words embedded in either sentence or paragraph contexts while their eye movements were recorded. The results extend the literature on novel word reading by exploring the time‐course of word processing using realistic contexts derived from existing sources. Eye‐movement measures demonstrated that readers were very sensitive to the presence of novel words. Novel words were more likely to be fixated and had longer reading times than real words. In addition, words in sentence contexts had longer gaze durations than words in paragraphs. The effect of novelty on reading the target word did not vary as a function of the context length. While performance on the surprise post‐test did not demonstrate significant word learning, participants did report higher confidence in correct responses than incorrect, suggesting that some learning took place.     

Reading deficits in learning disabled children

The purpose of this study was to determine whether LD children exhibited problems in the processes of attention, memory, or syntactical awareness when decoding written prose. Eighteen LD children and 18 normal controls were matched for initial word recognition skills. Subjects were then trained to read a list of individual words to criterion. Subsequently, they were tested on their ability to decode the same words in paragraph form, presented both immediately after training, and then again one week later. Half the children read paragraphs following standard English syntax, while the other half read a syntactically scrambled version of the same paragraph. The results indicated that a major contributing factor in the reading (decoding) difficulties demonstrated by the LD children derived from problems of acquisition and retrieval from long-term memory storage. The results were discussed in terms of their implications for the developmental lag theory of learning disabilities.     

Mirror-reading in right- and left-handers

In mirror-reading, words are read from right to left and letters are read in a reverse right-to-left orientation. In one experiment we compared the ability of normal right- and left-handed subjects to mirror-read and found that the left-handers made fewer errors and could read mirror print more rapidly. In a second experiment we attempted to learn whether there is a hemifield superiority for reading mirror words and whether there are any differences between left- and right-handers in a hemifield. We found that although both right- and left-handers more rapidly detected mirror words projected to the left visual half-field, there were no differences between groups. However, in the right visual half-field, the performance of left-handers was superior to that of the right-handers. The results of the hemifield study suggest that left-handers may be superior at reading mirror words because they can more easily reverse their scanning pattern.     

Testing the Role of Phonology in Reading: Focus on Sentence Processing

Most reading research investigating the role of phonology in word recognition has focused on studies employing an individual word as the sole stimulus. The bulk of such research has offered support for the phonological recoding hypothesis, the conjecture that access to a printed word’s meaning requires activation of the word’s phonology (i.e., meaning is not typically activated via orthography alone). A criticism of such studies is that by presenting participants with only a single word on each experimental trial (a nonecological manipulation), participants may alter their typical strategy of reading in such a way as to artificially favor the phonological recoding hypothesis. The present study avoided a focus on single words by requiring participants to read sentences and paragraphs for comprehension. Experiment 1 showed that, in reading a paragraph of connected sentences, eliminating a letter in a word that altered the phonology was more deleterious than eliminating a letter that did. Experiment 2 focused on the reading of each sentence itself rather than on the paragraph and provided additional control conditions. The results were similar to those of Experiment 1, consistent with the phonological recoding hypothesis.     

Influence of Background Speech and Music in Interrupted Reading: An Eye‐Tracking Study

The current study examined the influence of interruption, background speech and music on reading, using an eye movement paradigm. Participants either read paragraphs while being exposed to background speech or music or read the texts in silence. On half of the trials, participants were interrupted by a 60‐second audio story before resuming reading the paragraph. Interruptions increased overall reading time, but the reading of text following the interruption was quicker compared with baseline. Background speech and music did not modulate the interruption effects, but the background speech slowed down the reading rate compared with reading in the presence of music or reading in silence. The increase in reading time was primarily due to an increase in the time spent rereading previously read words. We argue that the observed interruption effects are in line with a theory of long‐term working memory, and we present practical implications for the reported background speech effects. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning to ignore distracters

Eye tracking has indicated that older and young adults process distracters similarly when reading single sentences. The present study extended this approach by presenting short paragraphs, sentence by sentence. Eye tracking measures included reading times per word, and the duration of the first fixation and total fixations to the distracters and target words. Comprehension was tested following each paragraph, and recognition of distracters and target words was assessed. The results indicated that young adults were able to learn to ignore the distracters as they read through the paragraphs, whereas older adults were less successful at learning to ignore the distracters.     

Printed word learning in beginning readers

Three experiments using beginning Dutch readers (7 and 8 years of age) as subjects provide evidence that visually recognizing the unique graphemic structure of words is an important component in word identification, even at rather early stages in learning to read. Only a moderate amount of practice in reading strings of letters was necessary for young children to read the regular spelling faster than an altered spelling that preserved the word sound. In normal beginners this effect appeared regardless of their ability to identify the words the first time; in learning-disabled children, matched in overall reading speed, learning about the graphemic compositions of words seems to proceed at a much slower rate. The results are discussed with regard to the importance of building accurate graphemic entries in the mental lexicon for acquiring fluency in reading.     

Noise effects on rehearsal rate in short term serial order memory

Three experiments are reported which were designed to test the hypothesis that the rate of rehearsal during noise is slower than that under quiet conditions. The first experiment measured directly the rate of articulation while subjects either read or rehearsed a set of five consonants. It was shown that while the rate of articulation when reading aloud did not differ under the two noise levels [65 dB(C) and 85 dB(C)], rate of articulation during overt rehearsal in loud noise was significantly slower than under quiet conditions. In Experiment II a similar effect was demonstrated where words were required to be read or rehearsed; here it was shown that the greatest impairment due to noise was on the rate of rehearsal of words of long spoken length.

The third experiment showed that loud noise impaired recall performance more markedly for a set of words of long spoken length presented early on in the sequence than for a set of shorter words, even though both sets were equal in the number of syllables and phonemes they contained.

It was concluded that in verbal memory tasks where rote rehearsal of the to-be-remembered material is the predominant strategy for enhancing trace duration, noise may affect memory performance by slowing down the rehearsal rate.     

Phonemic deficits in developmental dyslexia

Summary The present study explored a possible relationship between reading difficulties and speech difficulties. Dyslexic and normal readers, matched for Reading Age, were compared first on a reading task and secondly on a speaking task.In the first experiment, the two groups were asked to read nonsense words aloud. Both groups were able to read one-syllable nonwords equally well but the dyslexics had more difficulty than the normal readers when asked to read two-syllable nonwords. Moreover, they found two-syllable nonwords containing consonant clusters particularly difficult. The probability of their making an error increased with the number of consonant clusters.In the second experiment, the subjects were required to repeat real words and nonsense words of two, three, or four syllables. Both groups found nonsense words more difficult to repeat than real words. However, the relative difficulty of nonsense words over real words was greater for the dyslexic group. Their difficulty was especially marked when they had to repeat four-syllable nonsense words.Thus, in both experiments the dyslexic readers were more affected by the phonological complexity of the stimuli than the normal readers were. Hence, it was suggested that the dyslexic readers tested were subject to a general phonemic deficit which affected their ability to process both written and spoken words.     

Skills of divided attention

Two subjects read short stories while writing lists of words at dictation. After some weeks of practice, they were able to write words, discover relations among dictated words, and categorize words for meaning, while reading for comprehension at normal speed. The performance of these subjects is not consistent with the notion that there are fixed limits to attentional capacity.     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

Effects of spatial disruptions on reading speed for fast and slow readers.

Forty-five subjects read three paragraphs at their normal reading speed and were timed. The first paragraph was presented normally, and the others were shown either with spaces that had been filled in or with spaces that were randomized in size. The subjects' initial reading speed declined with both alterations, but to a greater extent with the filled text. Moreover, the reduction in reading speed was greater for the 10 fastest readers than for the 10 slowest readers. This pattern of performance may reflect a floor effect with slower readers in the filled condition, but the authors interpreted the results as providing further support for Hochberg's peripheral search guidance (PSG; 1970) stage of reading.     

Do readers mentally represent characters' emotional states?

Abstract

Subjects read stories that described concrete actions, such as a main character stealing money from a store where his best friend worked and later learning that his friend had been fired. Following each story, subjects read a target sentence that contained an emotion word that either matched the emotional state implied by the story (e.g. guilt) or mismatched that emotional state. In Experiment 1, target sentences were read more slowly when the mismatched emotion words were the perceived opposites of the emotional states implied by the stories (e.g. pride). In Experiment 2, target sentences were read more slowly when the mismatched emotion words shared the affective valence of the implied emotional state; therefore, readers must represent more than simply the affective valence of the emotional states. Instead of reading target sentences that contained matching versus mismatching emotion words, subjects in Experiment 3 simply pronounced matching versus mismatching emotion words. Mismatching emotion words were pronounced more slowly. These experiments suggest that readers form explicit, lifelike, mental representations of fictional characters' emotional states, and readers form these representations as a normal part of reading comprehension.     

Experimental Studies of the Relation Between Rate of Reading and Speed of Association

Three groups of Ss read a five-paragraph story. One group read the middle paragraph under conditions of .2-second DAF. The other two groups functioned as control groups. Both an immediate and a delayed oral recall were obtained. The usual changes in reading rate were observed. Immediate memory for the material presented under DAF was severely impaired. Delayed retention showed a marked relative increase, but not enough of an absolute increase to eliminate the significant difference between the experimental and the control groups.     

Detecting letters in continuous text: effects of display size

In three letter detection experiments, subjects responded to each instance of the letter t in continuous text typed in a standard paragraph, typed with one to four words per line, or shown for a fixed duration on a computer screen either one or four words at a time. In the multiword and the standard paragraph conditions, errors were greatest and latencies longest on the word the when it was correctly spelled. This effect was diminished or reversed in the one-word conditions. These findings support a set of unitization hypotheses about the reading process, according to which subjects do not process the constituent letters of a word once that word has been identified unless no other word is in view.