ABSTRACT
Reading is a psychological process that is, under normal conditions, driven by visual input that initiates recognition and comprehension activities. That the reader interacts with the text, integrates previously acquired knowledge with local text information, and generates hypotheses about what might occur next in the text does not negate the critical initiation role played by the letters, words, punctuation, and other graphic characteristics of the page. Just how the optical and neurological systems transform these light-dark contrasts into meaningful information has occupied several generations of experimental psychologists, neurologists, and ophthalmologists. What we now know about visual processing in reading is amply summarized by the chapters that follow. The mission of this chapter is to explore the origins of this knowledge, that is, the history of interest in the visual component of reading.
