ABSTRACT
Rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) is a method for bypassing eye movements during reading. In RSVP, each word (or small group of words) appears in the same location, serially. This chapter emphasizes faster-than-normal rates of presentation in using RSVP to study reading, but RSVP is also useful at slower rates that are in the range of normal reading or listening. It gives the experimenter control over the timing of reading, in a fashion similar to the control provided by spoken stimuli. The value of RSVP as a research tool is that the investigator has control over the timing of reading and over the physical display. This control also presents a major problem: one has to make a series of somewhat arbitrary choices of presentation parameters without knowing their separate effects and interactions. College-age subjects have been used in virtually all RSVP experiments, to this time. In only one study have individual differences, in this case reading ability, been examined.
