Open AccessEffects of word length on eye guidance differ for young and older Chinese readers.
Author(s) -
Sha Li,
Lin Li,
Jingxin Wang,
Victoria A. McGowan,
Kevin B. Paterson
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
psychology and aging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.468
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1939-1498
pISSN - 0882-7974
DOI - 10.1037/pag0000258
Subject(s) - psychology , eye movement , psycinfo , word (group theory) , character (mathematics) , reading (process) , word length , fixation (population genetics) , word recognition , linguistics , cognitive psychology , medline , medicine , neuroscience , population , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , environmental health , political science , law
Effects of word length on where and for how long readers fixate within text are preserved in older age for alphabetic languages like English that use spaces to demarcate word boundaries. However, word length effects for older readers of naturally unspaced, character-based languages like Chinese are unknown. Accordingly, we examined age differences in eye movements for short (2-character) and long (4-character) words during Chinese reading. Word length effects on eye-fixation times were greater for older than younger adults. We suggest this age difference is due to older adults' saccades landing more rarely at optimal intraword locations, especially in longer words. (PsycINFO Database Record