Characterization of gliding text as a reading stimulus

Abstract

Eye movement is analyzed for reading one line of text gliding smoothly across a television screen. The resulting eye movement pattern is similar to optokinetic nystagmus. Unlike for normal reading, the eye fixations recorded for reading gliding text are nonstationary pursuit fixations on a moving target. The slower reading speed measured for gliding than for stationary text may indicate that an extra effort is needed to maintain optokinetic nystagmus in the process of reading. © 1985, The psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.