ABSTRACT

The study of the processes involved in skilled reading has fascinated experimental psychologists for over a hundred years. The use of eye movement data to study reading comprehension raises many questions. There are three major issues which we have judged to be central to justifying claim that the behavior of the eyes can be used as a window to the language comprehension process. As a person reads a passage of text, a series of eye movements are made. The reader fixates for about 200-250 msec and then makes a jump forward or a saccade of 7-8 character spaces. The study of reading during this last decade has been closely linked to technological advances in systems designed to track and time the eye. What may be less obvious to those unfamiliar with this technology is the fact that the kinds of theories espoused by different researchers frequently reflect the characteristics of the apparatus used to develop the theories.