Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Elizabeth R. Schotter, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Ruthann Atchley, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Peter E. Clayson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Brennan R. Payne, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Sandra L. Schneider, Ph.D.

Keywords

Fixation-Related Brain Potentials, Reading Comprehension, Word Recognition

Abstract

Skilled readers skip approximately one third of the words in the text while reading for comprehension (Rayner, 1998). Therefore, a prominent question for decades among reading and language researchers has been how people are able to recognize words and comprehend text without even looking at all of the words. Eye tracking studies have established that some information about an upcoming word in the text can be identified while still looking at the previous word (Rayner, 1975), but it remains an open question whether words that are skipped are thoroughly identified or if skipping decisions are based on shallow heuristic factors, such as low-level visual properties, rough identification of a word’s familiarity, and expectations based on context cues. To address this question, two experiments were conducted that manipulated the predictability, familiarity, and subtle spelling errors of upcoming words while recording eye movements and electroencephalography (EEG). Brain responses were measured during fixations on the word that preceded the manipulated target word and trials were split based on whether the target word was skipped or fixated to determine whether skipped words were fully identified in the brain. Results showed that when words are skipped, they can be precisely identified while fixating the prior word before skipping. However, this thorough identification depends on having context-based expectations, on the familiarity of the word, and on individual differences in reading strategies.

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