| Title |
When your mind skips what your eyes fixate: How forced fixations lead to comprehension illusions in reading
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, August 2017
|
| DOI | 10.3758/s13423-017-1356-y |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Elizabeth R. Schotter, Mallorie Leinenger, Titus von der Malsburg |
| Abstract |
The phenomenon of forced fixations suggests that readers sometimes fixate a word (due to oculomotor constraints) even though they intended to skip it (due to parafoveal cognitive-linguistic processing). We investigate whether this leads readers to look directly at a word but not pay attention to it. We used a gaze-contingent boundary paradigm to dissociate parafoveal and foveal information (e.g., the word phone changed to scarf once the reader's eyes moved to it) and asked questions about the sentence to determine which one the reader encoded. When the word was skipped or fixated only briefly (i.e., up to 100 ms) readers were more likely to report reading the parafoveal than the fixated word, suggesting that there are cases in which readers look directly at a word but their minds ignore it, leading to the illusion of reading something they did not fixate. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 1 | 33% |
| United States | 1 | 33% |
| Unknown | 1 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Scientists | 2 | 67% |
| Members of the public | 1 | 33% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 36 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 36 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 8 | 22% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 7 | 19% |
| Researcher | 5 | 14% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 4 | 11% |
| Student > Bachelor | 2 | 6% |
| Other | 5 | 14% |
| Unknown | 5 | 14% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 10 | 28% |
| Linguistics | 4 | 11% |
| Arts and Humanities | 3 | 8% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 3 | 8% |
| Neuroscience | 2 | 6% |
| Other | 6 | 17% |
| Unknown | 8 | 22% |