👤 Bernard Lété

The initial saccade of experienced readers tends to land halfway between the beginning and the middle of words, at a position originally referred to as the preferred viewing location (PVL). This study investigated whether a simple physical manipulation-namely, increasing the saliency (brightness or color) of the letter located at the PVL-can positively influence saccadic targeting strategies and optimize reading performance. An eye-movement experiment was conducted with 25 adults and 24 s graders performing a lexical decision task. Results showed that this manipulation had no effect on initial landing positions in proficient readers, who already landed most frequently at the PVL, suggesting that PVL saliency is irrelevant once automatized saccade targeting routines are established. In contrast, the manipulation shifted the peak of the landing site distribution toward the PVL for a cluster of readers with immature saccadic strategies (with low reading-level scores and ILPs close to the beginning of words), but only in the brightness condition, and had a more compelling effect in a cluster with oculomotor instability (with flattened and diffuse landing position curves along with oculomotor and visuo-attentional deficits). These findings suggest that guiding the eyes toward the PVL may offer a novel way to improve reading efficiency, particularly for individuals with oculomotor and visuo-attentional difficulties. Show less

The current study investigated the development of single word processing and multiple word processing skills in French-speaking children from Grade 2 to Grade 6. A total of 150 children participated in two tasks: a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) and a Grammatical Decision Task (GDT). The LDT was used to test single word processing abilities, whereas the GDT was used to test multiple word processing abilities, with stimuli presented at varying display times (LDT: 83-300 ms; GDT: 150-700 ms). Signal detection theory analysis revealed that all children performed well in the LDT, whereas only Grade 4 and Grade 6 children performed above chance in the GDT. A cluster analysis was used to investigate the different types of relation between sensitivity (d') in the LDT and GDT. The analysis revealed two clusters that differed in reading fluency and sensitivity in both tasks. Children from Cluster 2, who exhibited the highest sensitivity in the LDT, were the only ones to perform on average above the chance level in the GDT. Moreover, a strong correlation (r = .64) between LDT and GDT performance was found in this group. Finally, we found that a sensitivity of 1.95 in the LDT almost perfectly predicted cluster membership. Such sensitivity was achieved at Grade 3, suggesting that the ability to process multiple word sequences first requires sufficient efficiency in processing words in isolation. Once this turning point is reached, single word processing skills support the development of multiple word processing, which could take several years to mature fully. Show less

This study explores the impact of visually similar flanking stimuli on central target words using the Flanking Letter Lexical Decision (FLLD) task. Specifically, we investigated whether visual similarity effects can explain orthographic relatedness effects observed in previous FLLD tasks. By employing non-reversal mirror letters as visual flankers, we compared their influence on response times to traditional orthographic-related and orthographic-unrelated conditions. Results confirmed the known facilitative effect of orthographic-related flankers on response times (ROCK ROCK ROCK). However, mirror-related conditions showed no facilitative effect ([Formula: see text] ROCK [Formula: see text]), as evidenced by a Bayesian analysis indicating no significant differences between mirror-related and mirror-unrelated ([Formula: see text] ROCK [Formula: see text]). These findings suggest that low-level visual information in the parafovea does not contribute to the processing of the foveal word in tasks requiring specific word identification. The study concludes that only parafoveal information with relevant linguistic content is spatially pooled across target and flankers during word identification tasks. This research highlights the need to consider task-specific attentional demands and the linguistic relevance of parafoveal information in understanding visual and orthographic processing in reading. Show less

We examined the reliance on phonological decoding and morpho-orthographic decomposition strategies in developing and skilled readers of French. A lexical decision experiment was conducted where the critical stimuli were four types of nonwords, all derived from the same base word, such as the French word visage (face) in the following examples: (a) pseudo-homophone (PsH) nonwords (e.g., visaje), (b) orthographic controls for PsH nonwords (e.g., visape), (c) pseudo-morphemic (PsM) nonwords (e.g., visageable), and (d) orthographic controls for PsM nonwords (e.g., visagealle, where alle is not a suffix in French). Responses to PsH and PsM nonwords and their controls were studied in three groups of school children (Grades 1, 2, and 5) and one group of skilled adult readers. PsH interference effects (i.e., more errors to PsH nonwords than to the corresponding controls) decreased during reading acquisition to become nonsignificant in skilled readers. Interestingly, the opposite pattern was seen in PsM interference effects (also measured in terms of accuracy), which were already significant in Grade 1 and increased during reading development to reach their maximum in skilled readers. These results point toward opposing learning trajectories in the use of phonological and morphological information when learning to silently read for meaning. Show less