On words and their letters

Abstract

In a recent article, McConkie et al. (1989) proposed that, due to the rapid drop-off of visual acuity, the amount of visual information available from a word is maximal when the eye fixates the middle of the word, and decreases on both sides of this optimal viewing position with each letter of deviation. However, data on perceptual span have demonstrated that during a fixation, more letters are utilized to the right than to the left of the fixation point, which would predict that the optimal viewing position should be left of center. In a letter discrimination task, the ratio of the left/right asymmetry was determined and the probability of correct word recognition as a function of fixation location in the word was estimated. The predictions were highly compatible with empirical results on word recognition. © 1991, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.