Absence of Right Visual Field Attentional Bias in Reading in Dyslexic Children

Abstract

A parafoveal word is better identified in the right visual field (RVF) than in the left visual field (LVF), in adults and in school age children. We studied the distribution of attention when identifying parafoveal words in dyslexic children and age matched skilled readers. We compared performance in a condition in which a word was presented alone in the LVF or RVF, and a condition in which a distractor was simultaneously presented in the visual field opposite the word. We also presented a bilateral condition in which two words, one in each visual field, had to be identified. If the difference between dyslexics and skilled readers mainly concerns the capacity to identify and report visual words, the main difference should occur in the bilateral condition. Results were confirmed in a second experiment reducing the presentation duration (maximum 200 ms) in a new group of 20 dyslexics with similar characteristics, thus may not be attributed to the different presentation duration between groups, and to possible saccades during the trials in dyslexics. Dyslexics needed presentation duration twice as much as the skilled readers to obtain similar reading performance, showing a strong difficulty to identify parafoveal words. These results suggest that skilled readers presented an attentional bias in favor of the RVF, and dyslexics may distribute attention more equally between visual fields. This absence of RVF bias in dyslexics may be the result of a left hemisphere dysfunctioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)