The Perceptual Span in Reading Chinese Text: A
Moving-Window Study
Chih-Hao Tsai and George W. McConkie
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tsai, C. H., & McConkie, G. W. (1995,
December). The perceptual span in reading Chinese text: A
moving window study. Paper presented at the Seventh
International Conference on the Cognitive Processing of
Chinese and Other Asian Languages, Hong Kong.
Abstract
During reading, the information that can be extracted from a
given fixation is limited. The perceptual span (effective
visual field) on a fixation in reading English text is well
studied. Besides, there has been some research on perceptual
span in reading Japanese. However, little is known about the
perceptual span in reading Chinese text. Since Chinese
orthography is quite different from that of alphabetical
orthography, it is interesting to investigate how many
characters can be perceived during a fixation.
We have developed a program to investigate this issue,
placing a 'window' of normal text at the location to which
the eyes are directed, with characters outside this region
that the reader is not likely to know. Taiwanese students
read two passages which were presented a single line at a
time, with the size and offset of the window being different
on different fixations. An initial analysis suggests that
total reading time, mean fixation duration, mean forward
saccade length, and mean number of regressions were affected
by window sizes and offsets. Additional information about the
effect of the window, and its comparison with data from
reading English, will be included in the presentation.