Improvement of Reading Speed and Change of Eye Movements

概要

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Although many studies have examined eye movements in reading, it is unclear what factors separate fast readers from slow readers. Some studies suggest that effective visual field size should be a dominant factor. However, a direct link between reading speed and effective visual field is under controversial. To clarify this issue, we investigated eye movements in reading in conjunction with speed reading training. Four participants (approx. 600 letters per minute in Japanese) improved thier reading speed through training for half an hour per day for 30 days. Reading performance of Japanese editorial articles was recorded every five days of training by the gaze-contingent window method. In three participants, effective visual field size did not increase in the same manner as reading speed which increased up to 1000 lpm. Instead, we found that in those three participants mean saccadic length became longer due to the reduction of short and unsystematic saccades. On the contrary, one participant showed high correlation between effective visual field and reading speed. Our results suggest that not only the size of the effective visual field but also efficiency of comprehension at a single gaze may be important factors for reading speed. The qualitative discrepancy among individuals suggests the existence of multiple strategies for fast reading.