Problem 6
Riegler, Eysenck
Article: A step at a time: Preliterate children’s simulation of narrative movement during story
comprehension by Fecica and O’Neill
Article: The perfect solution for detecting sarcasm in tweets by Liebrecht, Kunneman & Bosch
Top-down and bottom-up processes in reading
- Reading is basically an exercise in pattern recognition
- A pattern of stimulation is encoded in the visual system, and a corresponding
representation is activated in semantic memory
- Our mental processes when reading involve a mix of bottom-up (perceive) and top-
down (schemas)
EYE MOVEMENTS
- The processing starts where eyes take in the printed page
- Consistencies in speed and pattern of our eye movements can reveal a lot about our
underlying mental processes
- Method to track people’s eye movements: shining an invisible beam onto the eye,
which is reflected back, noninvasive
Saccades and Fixations:
- Eyes move in a series of stops, pauses, and starts terms saccades and fixations
- Saccades:
o The discrete movements from one point to another when reading, taking in a
visual scene or searching for an object
o They occur continually
o Saccades during reading are 6 to 8 letters in length
o Takes about 20 ms
o Saccadic suppression: we take little to no information during saccades
o It’s not clear whether or not cognitive processing is suppressed during
saccades
- Fixations:
o In between saccades
o Eyes pause briefly to take in information
o Typically, last for 200 to 300 ms, the length depends on the reading task
o Gazes: consecutive fixations in the same spot
o The summed duration of these gazes (gaze duration) is a dependent variable
in many reading studies
When vs Where:
- Studies on eye movement focus on these 2 dimensions
“When” Factors:
- Length of fixation time depends on how challenging it is process
- Content words receive more gaze time than function words like “that” or “and”
- The more unfamiliar the words are, the longer the fixation
- Less frequently encountered words in our day-to-day readings receive longer
fixations
, - The more predictable the word, the less fixation it will receive
- The age at which a word is acquired: word you’ve known since you were a child will
receive less fixation
- The decision about when to move eyes is determined by linguistic factors – aspects of
what is being read
- Top-down factors: they show how reading is determined by previous knowledge and
expectation
“Where” Factors:
- The landing spot is determined by lover level (physical) characteristics
- E.g. word length and word spacing
- These factors are bottom-up because they are physical aspects of incoming data
Word skipping:
- About 30% of the word we take during reading are skipped
- We jump over the words without fixating
- Factors of skipping are determined by both top-down and bottom-up
- We’re more likely to skip words that are highly constrained/unnatural
- High frequency words (frequently used in daily life) are more likely to be skipped
- Short words are more likely to be skipped -don’t carry much meaning
Regressive Saccades:
- On occasion eyes will move backwards: regressive saccades constitute 10-15% of all
saccades
- These occur when a reader makes too long saccade and has to backtrack or if a word
is hard to decipher
- Good and poor readers differ in the quality of their regressive saccades
- Good readers are better at regressing to exactly where they had the problem, poor
readers must be more backtracking
- Inefficient eye saccades and fixation patterns are symptoms of poor reading not
causes
Perceptual span
- The amount of text that eyes can cover effectively to the right of any given fixation
- For English alphabet perceptual span is 3 characters to the left, and 15 characters to
the right
- Perceptual spans differ depending on writing system of the language
- It also differs with the difficulty of the material
- Parafoveal information: information that falls outside of fixation but within the
perceptual span
o This aids lexical access and word recognition process
o Allows word length detection and skipping short function words
o Makes reading fast and efficient
- Blank spaces:
o Make words physically easier to see
o Indicate length of upcoming words
o Indicate the end of a given word
Riegler, Eysenck
Article: A step at a time: Preliterate children’s simulation of narrative movement during story
comprehension by Fecica and O’Neill
Article: The perfect solution for detecting sarcasm in tweets by Liebrecht, Kunneman & Bosch
Top-down and bottom-up processes in reading
- Reading is basically an exercise in pattern recognition
- A pattern of stimulation is encoded in the visual system, and a corresponding
representation is activated in semantic memory
- Our mental processes when reading involve a mix of bottom-up (perceive) and top-
down (schemas)
EYE MOVEMENTS
- The processing starts where eyes take in the printed page
- Consistencies in speed and pattern of our eye movements can reveal a lot about our
underlying mental processes
- Method to track people’s eye movements: shining an invisible beam onto the eye,
which is reflected back, noninvasive
Saccades and Fixations:
- Eyes move in a series of stops, pauses, and starts terms saccades and fixations
- Saccades:
o The discrete movements from one point to another when reading, taking in a
visual scene or searching for an object
o They occur continually
o Saccades during reading are 6 to 8 letters in length
o Takes about 20 ms
o Saccadic suppression: we take little to no information during saccades
o It’s not clear whether or not cognitive processing is suppressed during
saccades
- Fixations:
o In between saccades
o Eyes pause briefly to take in information
o Typically, last for 200 to 300 ms, the length depends on the reading task
o Gazes: consecutive fixations in the same spot
o The summed duration of these gazes (gaze duration) is a dependent variable
in many reading studies
When vs Where:
- Studies on eye movement focus on these 2 dimensions
“When” Factors:
- Length of fixation time depends on how challenging it is process
- Content words receive more gaze time than function words like “that” or “and”
- The more unfamiliar the words are, the longer the fixation
- Less frequently encountered words in our day-to-day readings receive longer
fixations
, - The more predictable the word, the less fixation it will receive
- The age at which a word is acquired: word you’ve known since you were a child will
receive less fixation
- The decision about when to move eyes is determined by linguistic factors – aspects of
what is being read
- Top-down factors: they show how reading is determined by previous knowledge and
expectation
“Where” Factors:
- The landing spot is determined by lover level (physical) characteristics
- E.g. word length and word spacing
- These factors are bottom-up because they are physical aspects of incoming data
Word skipping:
- About 30% of the word we take during reading are skipped
- We jump over the words without fixating
- Factors of skipping are determined by both top-down and bottom-up
- We’re more likely to skip words that are highly constrained/unnatural
- High frequency words (frequently used in daily life) are more likely to be skipped
- Short words are more likely to be skipped -don’t carry much meaning
Regressive Saccades:
- On occasion eyes will move backwards: regressive saccades constitute 10-15% of all
saccades
- These occur when a reader makes too long saccade and has to backtrack or if a word
is hard to decipher
- Good and poor readers differ in the quality of their regressive saccades
- Good readers are better at regressing to exactly where they had the problem, poor
readers must be more backtracking
- Inefficient eye saccades and fixation patterns are symptoms of poor reading not
causes
Perceptual span
- The amount of text that eyes can cover effectively to the right of any given fixation
- For English alphabet perceptual span is 3 characters to the left, and 15 characters to
the right
- Perceptual spans differ depending on writing system of the language
- It also differs with the difficulty of the material
- Parafoveal information: information that falls outside of fixation but within the
perceptual span
o This aids lexical access and word recognition process
o Allows word length detection and skipping short function words
o Makes reading fast and efficient
- Blank spaces:
o Make words physically easier to see
o Indicate length of upcoming words
o Indicate the end of a given word
