So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help?

The jingle fallacy in comprehension tests for reading

The Jingle fallacy is the false assumption that instruments which share the same name measure the same underlying construct. In this experiment, we focus on the comprehension subtests of the Nelson Denny Reading Test (NDRT) and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT-II). 91 university students read passages for comprehension whilst their eye movements were recorded. Participants took part in two experimental blocks of which the order was counterbalanced, one with higher comprehension demands and one with lower comprehension demands. We assumed that tests measuring comprehension would be able to predict differences observed in eye movement patterns as a function of varying comprehension demands. Overall, readers were able to adapt their reading strategy to read more slowly, making more and longer fixations, coupled with shorter saccades when comprehension demands were higher. Within an experimental block, high scorers on the NDRT were able to consistently increase their pace of reading over time for both higher and lower comprehension demands, whereas low scorers approached a threshold where they could not continue to increase their reading speed or further reduce the number of fixations to read a text, even when comprehension demands were low. Individual differences based on the WIAT-II did not explain similar patterns. The NDRT comprehension test was therefore more predictive of differences in the reading patterns of skilled adult readers in response to comprehension demands than the WIAT-II (which also suffered from low reliability). Our results revealed that these different comprehension measures should not be used interchangeably, and researchers should be cautious when choosing reading comprehension tests for research.

Lower-level oculomotor deficits in schizophrenia during multi-line reading: Evidence from return-sweeps

Reading fluency deficits in schizophrenia (Sz) have been attributed to dysfunction in both lower-level, oculomotor processing and higher-level, lexical processing, according to the two-hit deficit model. Given that prior work examining reading deficits in individuals with Sz has primarily focused on single-line and single-word reading tasks, eye movements that are unique to passage reading, such as return-sweep saccades, have not yet been examined in Sz. Return-sweep saccades are large eye movements that are made when readers move from the end of one line to the beginning of the next line during natural passage reading. Examining return-sweeps provides an opportunity to examine lower-level, oculomotor deficits during reading under circumstances when upcoming higher-level, lexical information is not available for visual processing because visual acuity constraints do not permit detailed lexical processing of line-initial words when return-sweeps are programmed. To examine the source of reading deficits in Sz, we analysed an existing data set in which participants read multi-line passages with manipulations to line spacing. Readers with Sz made significantly more return-sweep targeting errors followed by corrective saccades compared with healthy controls. Both groups showed similar effects of line spacing on return-sweep targeting accuracy, suggesting similar sensitivities to visual crowding during reading. Furthermore, the patterns of fixation durations in readers with Sz corroborate prior work indicating reduced parafoveal processing of upcoming words. Together, these findings suggest that lower-level visual and oculomotor dysfunction contribute to reading deficits in Sz, providing support for the two-hit deficit model.

The Role of Occipitotemporal Network for Speed-Reading: An fMRI Study

The activity of occipitotemporal regions involved in linguistic reading processes, such as the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT), is believed to exhibit strong interactions during higher-order language processing, specifically in the connectivity between the occipital gyrus and the temporal gyrus. In this study, we utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with psychophysiological interaction (PPI) and dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to investigate the functional and effective connectivity in the occipitotemporal network during speed reading. We conducted the experiment with native Japanese speakers who underwent and without speed-reading training and subsequently performed established reading tasks at different speeds (slow, medium, and fast) while undergoing 3-Tesla Siemens fMRI. Our activation analyses revealed significant changes in occipital and temporal regions as reading speed increased, indicating functional connectivity within the occipitotemporal network. DCM results further demonstrated more intricate effective connections and high involvement within the occipitotemporal pathway: (1) reading signals originated from the inferior occipital gyrus (iO), distributed to the vOT and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and then gathered in the anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS); (2) reading speed loads had modulation effects on the pathways from the aSTS to vOT and from the iO to vOT. These findings highlight the complex connectivity and dynamic interactions within the occipitotemporal network during speed-reading processes.

The equation for medical multiple-choice question testing time estimation

Introduction and importance

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) offer a suitable means to assess the cognitive domain of learners with a high degree of objectivity. The study's objective is to formulate an equation for determining the ideal timing for MCQ examinations, thereby inspiring the development of a model to estimate the duration of these examinations.

Methods

The authors generated a specific computer program that integrated with the operating system of the examination. Technical-specific features included the ability to calculate the speed of students taking examinations with images or videos in the questions or options. This bespoke computer program was designed specifically for assessing individual students' MCQ test-taking pace and generating a proctor report in a computer-readable format. Subsequently, data derived from this program underwent regression analysis to determine the speed at which students completed MCQ examinations.

Outcomes

The data were collected from a total of 1035 examinees, all of whom were non-native English speakers. The average reading rate was 62.38±20.4 words/min. It was found that the rate decreased significantly in difficult (50.65±6.9 words/min) items compared to easy (82.29±21.3 words/min) and intermediate (60.56±19.1 words/min) items (p<0.001), respectively. The linear regression analysis predicted option selection (words/min) as; 33.92+1.93(%tables/figures)+0.14(%recall)-0.37(%application), r2=0.45, p<0.001.

Conclusion

It is not advisable to base the decision solely on reading time or time allocation. Examination administrators are advised to proactively plan ahead, with particular emphasis on establishing a well-defined taxonomy, as it constitutes a fundamental cornerstone in the utilization of the estimation equation.

Severe processing capacity limits for sub-lexical features of letter strings

When reading, the visual system is confronted with many words simultaneously. How much of that information can a reader process at once? Previous studies demonstrated that low-level visual features of multiple words are processed in parallel, but lexical attributes are processed serially, for one word at a time. This implies that an internal bottleneck lies somewhere between early visual and lexical analysis. We used a dual-task behavioral paradigm to investigate whether this bottleneck lies at the stage of letter recognition or phonological decoding. On each trial, two letter strings were flashed briefly, one above and one below fixation, and then masked. In the letter identification experiment, participants indicated whether a vowel was present in a particular letter string. In the phonological decoding experiment, participants indicated whether the letter string was pronounceable. We compared accuracy in a focused attention condition, in which participants judged only one of the two strings, with accuracy in a divided attention condition, in which participants judged both strings independently. In both experiments, the cost of dividing attention was so large that it supported a serial model: participants were able to process only one letter string per trial. Furthermore, we found a stimulus processing trade-off that is characteristic of serial processing: When participants judged one string correctly, they were less likely to judge the other string correctly. Therefore, the bottleneck that constrains word recognition under these conditions arises at a sub-lexical level, perhaps due to a limit on the efficiency of letter recognition.

Using a Flipped Classroom Model to Deliver Cardiovascular Nursing Education: A Continuous Quality Improvement Study

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst to change a didactic class training series consisting of passive lecture-based learning to a flipped classroom model with active learning techniques for newly hired nurses to a cardiovascular center. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to measure if utilizing a flipped classroom model to teach new cardiovascular nurses elicits the same class evaluation measurements compared to a traditional in-person didactic learning model.

The role of visual crowding in eye movements during reading: Effects of text spacing

Visual crowding, generally defined as the deleterious influence of clutter on visual discrimination, is a form of inhibitory interaction between nearby objects. While the role of crowding in reading has been established in psychophysics research using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigms, how crowding affects additional processes involved in natural reading, including parafoveal processing and saccade targeting, remains unclear. The current study investigated crowding effects on reading via two eye-tracking experiments. Experiment 1 was a sentence-reading experiment incorporating an eye-contingent boundary change in which reader's parafoveal processing was quantified through comparing reading times after valid or invalid information was presented in the parafovea. Letter spacing was jointly manipulated to compare how crowding affects parafoveal processing. Experiment 2 was a passage-reading experiment with a line spacing manipulation. In addition to replicating previously observed letter spacing effects on global reading parameters (i.e., more but shorter fixations with wider spacing), Experiment 1 found an interaction between preview validity and letter spacing indicating that the efficiency of parafoveal processing was constrained by crowding and visual acuity. Experiment 2 found reliable but subtle influences of line spacing. Participants had shorter fixation durations, higher skipping probabilities, and less accurate return sweeps when line spacing was increased. In addition to extending the literature on the role of crowding to reading in ecologically valid scenarios, the current results inform future research on characterizing the influence of crowding in natural reading and comparing effects of crowding across reader populations.

Generative Artificial Intelligence GPT-4 Accelerates Knowledge Mining and Machine Learning for Synthetic Biology

Knowledge mining from synthetic biology journal articles for machine learning (ML) applications is a labor-intensive process. The development of natural language processing (NLP) tools, such as GPT-4, can accelerate the extraction of published information related to microbial performance under complex strain engineering and bioreactor conditions. As a proof of concept, we proposed prompt engineering for a GPT-4 workflow pipeline to extract knowledge from 176 publications on two oleaginous yeasts (Yarrowia lipolytica and Rhodosporidium toruloides). After human intervention, the pipeline obtained a total of 2037 data instances. The structured data sets and feature selections enabled ML approaches (e.g., a random forest model) to predict Yarrowia fermentation titers with decent accuracy (R2 of 0.86 for unseen test data). Via transfer learning, the trained model could assess the production potential of the engineered nonconventional yeast, R. toruloides, for which there are fewer published reports. This work demonstrated the potential of generative artificial intelligence to streamline information extraction from research articles, thereby facilitating fermentation predictions and biomanufacturing development.

Consumers pay attention to ingredients on the front of a label: an eye tracking study

Sunscreen is an important part of skin cancer prevention. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed numerous changes to sunscreen labeling including adding active ingredients to the front of a label. The purpose of the study was to identify and describe differences in attention between current label formatting and the proposed label formatting. Forty-seven participants were interviewed. Participants were presented with mock sunscreen labels that resembled current labeling or labeling based on the proposed FDA rule. While reading the labels, eye movements were recorded. Participants spent 12.3 s longer looking at the front of the proposed rule-compliant label than they did on the front of the current label. They spent the longest time reading the directions (13-14 seconds) compared with other areas. Placing active ingredients on the front of a label in relatively large font makes it more likely consumers will look at the information.

Development of reading fluency and metacognitive knowledge of reading strategies during reciprocal teaching: do these changes actually contribute to reading comprehension?

The study examined the effect of reciprocal teaching on students' reading comprehension, reading fluency, and metacognitive knowledge of reading strategies, especially among students with learning difficulties. The special focus was to assess how the increase in reading fluency and metacognitive knowledge during the intervention contributes to the reading comprehension outcome. The sample consisted of 301 Grade 3 students, of whom 77 had learning difficulties. Analyzes of (co)variances were used for estimating the effects of reciprocal teaching on the development of reading comprehension, reading fluency, and metacognitive knowledge. Multigroup path analysis was used for testing the effect of increase in reading fluency and metacognitive knowledge on reading comprehension. We found reciprocal teaching had a positive effect on reading comprehension, especially for students with learning difficulties. Reading fluency and metacognitive knowledge improved significantly, but similarly in both the intervention and control groups. However, the increase in metacognitive knowledge only contributed to reading comprehension in the intervention group, not in the control group. The study sheds light on the cognitive and metacognitive mechanisms underlying students' reading comprehension process, emphasizing metacognitive knowledge and especially the systematic practice of reading strategies as key factors in improving reading comprehension.

Modeling Eye Movements During Decision Making: A Review

This article reviews recent advances in the psychometric and econometric modeling of eye-movements during decision making. Eye movements offer a unique window on unobserved perceptual, cognitive, and evaluative processes of people who are engaged in decision making tasks. They provide new insights into these processes, which are not easily available otherwise, allow for explanations of fundamental search and choice phenomena, and enable predictions of future decisions. We propose a theoretical framework of the search and choice tasks that people commonly engage in and of the underlying cognitive processes involved in those tasks. We discuss how these processes drive specific eye-movement patterns. Our framework emphasizes the central role of task and strategy switching for complex goal attainment. We place the extant literature within that framework, highlight recent advances in modeling eye-movement behaviors during search and choice, discuss limitations, challenges, and open problems. An agenda for further psychometric modeling of eye movements during decision making concludes the review.

Event-related potentials show that parafoveal vision is insufficient for semantic integration

Readers extract information from a word from parafoveal vision prior to looking at it. It has been argued that parafoveal perception allows readers to initiate linguistic processes, but it is unclear which stages of word processing are engaged: the process of extracting letter information to recognize words, or the process of extracting meaning to comprehend them. This study used the event-related brain potential (ERP) technique to investigate how word recognition (indexed by the N400 effect for unexpected or anomalous compared to expected words) and semantic integration (indexed by the Late-positive component; LPC effect for anomalous compared to expected words) are or are not elicited when the word is perceived only in parafoveal vision. Participants read a target word following a sentence that made it expected, unexpected, or anomalous, and read the sentences presented three words at a time in the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) with flankers paradigm so that words were perceived in parafoveal and foveal vision. We orthogonally manipulated whether the target word was masked in parafoveal and/or foveal vision to dissociate the processing associated with perception of the target word from either location. We found that the N400 effect was generated from parafoveally perceived words, and was reduced for foveally perceived words if they were previously perceived parafoveally. In contrast, the LPC effect was only elicited if the word was perceived foveally, suggesting that readers must attend to a word directly in foveal vision in order to attempt to integrate its meaning into the sentence context.

Online processing while monitoring worked-out examples with embedded errors: defining university student profiles

This study explores the process itself of comprehension monitoring of worked-out examples in mathematics. A ‘reversal error’ was embedded in a worked-out example of algebraic nature. Ninety-four engineers in a master’s degree program to become secondary teachers of technology were asked to judge the comprehensibility of the statement and the resolution provided, and to report in writing any incoherence, inconsistency, or error they might detect. The participants’ mental processes throughout the task were operationalized through behavioural variables based on a psychological mechanism proposed for inconsistency detection. The behavioural variables focused on the monitoring of important mathematical processes, the algebraic translation, and the interpretation of the numerical solution of the worked example. The software ‘Read and Answer’ was used to record online data on each participant’s behaviour while monitoring the example, as well as his/her written partial and final reports (the task products). An individual short interview was conducted to increase the reliability of the study. Data from each participant were first analysed. Secondly, data from all the participants were considered together in statistical analyses aimed at relating behavioural variables to task products. Four student monitoring profiles were identified corresponding to different combinations of detection/overlooking the embedded algebraic inconsistency, and detection/overlooking the subsequent inconsistency in the result: ‘competent monitoring’, ‘delayed monitoring’, ‘blocked monitoring’, and ‘poor monitoring’ students. Implications for teaching are discussed.

Modeling task effects in human reading with neural network-based attention

Research on human reading has long documented that reading behavior shows task-specific effects, but it has been challenging to build general models predicting what reading behavior humans will show in a given task. We introduce NEAT, a computational model of the allocation of attention in human reading, based on the hypothesis that human reading optimizes a tradeoff between economy of attention and success at a task. Our model is implemented using contemporary neural network modeling techniques, and makes explicit and testable predictions about how the allocation of attention varies across different tasks. We test this in an eyetracking study comparing two versions of a reading comprehension task, finding that our model successfully accounts for reading behavior across the tasks. Our work thus provides evidence that task effects can be modeled as optimal adaptation to task demands.

Remembrance of things perceived: Adding thalamocortical function to artificial neural networks

Recent research has illuminated the complexity and importance of the thalamocortical system but it has been difficult to identify what computational functions it performs. Meanwhile, deep-learning artificial neural networks (ANNs) based on bio-inspired models of purely cortical circuits have achieved surprising success solving sophisticated cognitive problems associated historically with human intelligence. Nevertheless, the limitations and shortcomings of artificial intelligence (AI) based on such ANNs are becoming increasingly clear. This review considers how the addition of thalamocortical connectivity and its putative functions related to cortical attention might address some of those shortcomings. Such bio-inspired models are now providing both testable theories of biological cognition and improved AI technology, much of which is happening outside the usual academic venues.

High-achieving ninth grade students’ self-reported strategy use and its relation to strategic reading behavior

Strategies in reading are viewed as essential tools needed to increase comprehension and learning from text. Especially in large-scale assessments, reliable and economic measures of reading strategies are needed which are valid to assess the strategy-performance relation. Questionnaire-based self-report measures are very popular but often fail to establish a positive relation between strategy use and performance. Nevertheless, these measures are objective and content valid as well as efficient in use. One explanation for this fact may be that, depending on students’ individual approaches to reading, various strategies may lead to better performance. Then, self-report questionnaires of strategy use (SRQs) would assess differences in strategic approaches of students which are not (necessarily) linked to performance. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether students’ differences in self-reported strategy use correspond to different strategic approaches in reading. The present study compares strategic reading behavior of a homogeneous sample of 22 high-achieving ninth grade students with superior performance in reading who were chosen for their high reading-related strategy knowledge and their difference in self-reported strategy use, assessed via questionnaire. Eleven students reported frequent strategy use (FSU) and 11 students reported seldom strategy use (SSU). For both groups, strategic reading behavior was assessed in an unobtrusive way using a computer-based multiple-choice reading test. Even though both groups showed little to none differences in reading performance, results indicate that FSU and SSU students differ in processing of text during initial reading and while re-reading text passages. In addition, they differed in how they proceed with reading tasks.

Word complexity modulates the divided-word effect during Chinese reading

The present study examined the influence of word complexity on the divided-word effect. By manipulating presentation conditions (line-final presentation vs. divided-word presentation vs. line-initial presentation) and visual complexity (high vs. low), we found a significant divided-word effect that the reading times such as gaze duration and total reading time were significantly longer in the divided-word presentation condition than in both the line-final and line-initial presentation conditions. On the measure of total reading time, the marginally significant interaction between the divided-word versus line-final presentation comparison and complexity showed that the divided-word effect was larger for low complexity words than that for high complexity words. These results suggest that dividing a word across two lines interferes with reading, and word complexity modulates this effect.

Differential effects of psychological distress on mitigation and vaccination: A public health conundrum

CDC-recommended mitigation behaviors and vaccination status were assessed in an online sample (N = 810; ages 18–80). Results were consistent with a differential distress hypothesis positing that whereas psychological distress, which is induced in part by social deprivation, interferes with mitigation behaviors involving social distancing, it motivates vaccination, in part because it, in turn, can increase social interaction. Age modulated these effects. Despite the greater risk of severe consequences, older adults not only showed less distress, but compared to younger participants with equivalent levels of distress, the older adults showed less effect of distress on both social distancing and vaccination status. Together these findings highlight a conundrum faced in public health messaging. Traditional “fear messages” may be less effective for older adults, who are most in danger, whereas in younger adults, the distress induced by fear messages may motivate vaccination but diminish mitigation behaviors needed to prevent subsequent “breakthrough” infections.

Using measures of reading time regularity (RTR) to quantify eye movement dynamics, and how they are shaped by linguistic information

In this article, we present the concept of reading time regularity (RTR) as a measure to capture reading process dynamics. The first study is concerned with examining one of the assumptions of RTR, namely, that process measures of reading, such as eye movement fluctuations and fixation durations, exhibit higher regularity when contingent on sequentially structured information, such as texts. To test this, eye movements of 26 German native speakers were recorded during reading-unrelated and reading-related tasks. To analyze the data, we used recurrence quantification analysis and sample entropy analysis to quantify the degree of temporal structure in time series of gaze steps and fixation durations. The results showed that eye movements become more regular in reading compared to nonreading conditions. These effects were most prominent when calculated on the basis of gaze step data. In a second study, eye movements of 27 native speakers of German were recorded for five conditions with increasing linguistic information. The results replicate the findings of the first study, verifying that these effects are not due to mere differences in task instructions between conditions. Implications for the concept of RTR and for future studies using these metrics in reading research are discussed.

Individual Differences in Cue Weighting in Sentence Comprehension: An Evaluation Using Approximate Bayesian Computation

Cue-based retrieval theories of sentence processing assume that syntactic dependencies are resolved through a content-addressable search process. An important recent claim is that in certain dependency types, the retrieval cues are weighted such that one cue dominates. This cue-weighting proposal aims to explain the observed average behavior, but here we show that there is systematic individual-level variation in cue weighting. Using the Lewis and Vasishth cue-based retrieval model, we estimated individual-level parameters for reading speed and cue weighting using 13 published datasets; hierarchical approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) was used to estimate the parameters. The modeling reveals a nuanced picture of cue weighting: we find support for the idea that some participants weight cues differentially, but not all participants do. Only fast readers tend to have the predicted higher weighting for structural cues, suggesting that reading proficiency (approximated here by reading speed) might be associated with cue weighting. A broader achievement of the work is to demonstrate how individual differences can be investigated in computational models of sentence processing without compromising the complexity of the model.

Towards a Rigorous Consideration of Occupant Behaviours of Residential Households for Effective Electrical Energy Savings: An Overview

There are two primary ways to save energy within a building: (1) through improving building engineering structures and adopting efficient appliance ownership, and (2) through changing occupants’ energy-consuming behaviors. Unfortunately the second way suffers from many challenges and limitations. Occupant behavior is, indeed, a complex and multi-disciplinary concept depending on several human factors. Although its importance is recognized by the energy management community, it is often oversimplified and naively defined when used to study, analyze or model energy load. This paper aims at promoting the definition of occupant behavior as well as exploring the extent to which the latter is involved in research works, targeting directly or indirectly energy savings. Hence, in this work, we propose an overview of interdisciplinary research approaches that consider occupants’ energy-saving behaviors, while we present the big picture and evaluate how occupant behavior is defined, we also propose a categorization of the major works that consider energy-consuming occupant behavior. Our findings via a literature review methodology, based on a bibliometric study, reveal a growth of the number of research works involving occupant behavior to model load forecasting and household segmentation. We have equally identified a research trend showing an increasing interest in studying how to successfully change occupant behaviors towards energy saving.

Acquired dyslexias following temporal lesions

The acquisition of reading by children is supported by deep changes in the brain systems devoted to vision and language. The left temporal lobe contributes critically to both systems, and lesions affecting it may therefore cause both peripheral vision-related and central language-related reading impairments. The diversity of peripheral dyslexias reflects the anatomical and functional division of the visual cortex into early visual regions, whose lesions have a limited impact on reading; ventral regions, whose lesions are mostly associated to Pure Alexia; and dorsal regions, whose lesions may yield spatial, neglect-related, and attentional dyslexias. Similarly, central alexias reflect the broad distinction, within language processes, between phonological and lexico-semantic components. Phonological and surface dyslexias roughly result from impairment of the former and the latter processes, respectively, while deep dyslexia may be seen as the association of both. In this chapter, we review such types of acquired dyslexias, their clinical features, pathophysiology, and anatomical correlates.

Reading in the age of digital distraction

Purpose

Digital distraction is a common phenomenon in e-reading contexts, and it is worth exploring in depth from the perspectives of information (digital content), users (readers) and technology (digital reading medium). Since screen reading has close links with multitasking and potential distraction, any investigation of reading in the digital environment must factor in this reality. This paper aims to investigate the extent and effects of digital distraction while reading on screens. Special emphases go to exploring multitasking while reading.

Design/methodology/approach

Survey and analysis methods are employed.

Findings

The extent of digital distraction among college students it found is alarming. All the top four sources of distraction are communication-based activities. Female students tend to concentrate more than males when they read on screens. An overwhelming majority of participants choose to read in print to reduce distractions and to concentrate effectively. Screen reading is inherently distracting, primarily due to multitasking. It appears that repeated multitasking during academic endeavors carries substantial costs.

Originality/value

Implications of digital distraction are discussed, and directions of future research are suggested.

Return-sweep saccades in oral reading

Recent research on return-sweep saccades has improved our understanding of eye movements when reading paragraphs. However, these saccades, which take our gaze from the end of one line to the start of the next line, have been studied only within the context of silent reading. Articulatory demands and the coordination of the eye-voice span (EVS) at line boundaries suggest that the execution of this saccade may be different in oral reading. We compared launch and landing positions of return-sweeps, corrective saccade probability and fixations adjacent to return-sweeps in skilled adult readers while reading paragraphs aloud and silently. Compared to silent reading, return-sweeps were launched from closer to the end of the line and landed closer to the start of the next line when reading aloud. The probability of making a corrective saccade was higher for oral reading than silent reading. These indicate that oral reading may compel readers to rely more on foveal processing at the expense of parafoveal processing. We found an interaction between reading modality and fixation type on fixation durations. The reading modality effect (i.e., increased fixation durations in oral compared to silent reading) was greater for accurate line-initial fixations and marginally greater for line-final fixations compared to intra-line fixations. This suggests that readers may use the fixations adjacent to return-sweeps as natural pause locations to modulate the EVS.

Individual differences in COVID-19 mitigation behaviors: The roles of age, gender, psychological state, and financial status

The present study examined individual characteristics potentially associated with changes in mitigation behaviors (social distancing and hygiene) recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Analysis of online survey responses from 361 adults, ages 20-78, with US IP addresses, identified significant correlates of adaptive behavioral changes, with implications for preventive strategies and mental health needs. The extent to which individuals changed their mitigation behaviors was unrelated to self-rated health or concern regarding the personal effects of COVID-19 but was related to concern regarding the effects of the pandemic on others. Thus, mitigation behaviors do not appear to be primarily motivated by self-protection. Importantly, adaptive changes in mitigation behaviors increased with age. However, these changes, particularly those related to the frequency of close proximity encounters, appear to be due to age-related decreases in anxiety and depression. Taken together, the present results argue against over-reliance on 'fear appeals' in public health messages as they may increase anxiety and depression. Instead, the present findings argue for more appeals to people's concern for others to motivate mitigation as well as indicating an immediate need to address individual mental health concerns for the sake of society as a whole.

How to Read an Abdominal CT: Insights from the Visual and Cognitive Sciences Translated for Clinical Practice

When first learning abdominal CT studies, residents are often given little concrete, practical direction. There is, however, a large literature from the visual and cognitive sciences that can provide guidance towards search strategies that maximize efficiency and comprehensiveness. This literature has not penetrated radiology teaching to any great extent. In this article, we will examine the current pedagogy (and why that falls short), why untutored search fails, where misses occur in abdomen/pelvis CT, why these misses occur where they do, how expert radiologists search 3d image stacks, and how novices might expedite the acquisition of expertise.

Reading: The Confluence of Vision and Language

The scientific study of reading has a rich history that spans disciplines from vision science to linguistics, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, neurology, and education. The study of reading can elucidate important general mechanisms in spatial vision, attentional control, object recognition, and perceptual learning, as well as the principles of plasticity and cortical topography. However, literacy also prompts the development of specific neural circuits to process a unique and artificial stimulus. In this review, we describe the sequence of operations that transforms visual features into language, how the key neural circuits are sculpted by experience during development, and what goes awry in children for whom learning to read is a struggle. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Vision Science, Volume 7 is September 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The transposed-word effect revisited: the role of syntax in word position coding

Skilled readers may misinterpret “you that read wrong” for “you read that wrong”: a transposed-word effect. This relatively novel finding, which supports parallel word processing during sentence reading, is attributed to a combination of noisy bottom-up word position coding and top-down syntactic constraints. The present study focussed on the contribution of syntactic constraints in driving transposed-word effects. In a speeded grammatical decision experiment, two types of ungrammatical transposed-word sequences were compared, namely a transposition either across a syntactic phrase (“the have girls gone home”) or within a syntactic phrase (“the girls gone have home”). We found longer response times and lower accuracy rates for within-phrase transpositions than across-phrase transpositions, demonstrating a direct influence of syntactic structures on the transposed-word effect. We conclude that the assignment of words to positions in a sentence is guided by top-down syntactic constraints.

Responsible Science Assessment: downplaying indexes, boosting quality

Scientists are facing enormous pressures posed by growing scientific communities and stagnant/reduced funding. In this scenario, mechanisms of knowledge achievement and management, as well as how recruitment, progression and evaluation are carried out should be reevaluated. We argue here that knowledge has become a profitable commodity and, as a consequence, excessive academic quantification, individual output assessment problems and abusive editorial market strategies have reached unsustainable levels. We propose to reinforce existing guidelines and to establish new ones to overcome these issues. Our proposal, the Initiative for Responsible Scientific Assessment (IRSA), has the main goal to strengthen and expand previous movements in the scientific community to promote higher quality research assessment, focused on better Science.

Testing limits: ERP evidence for word form preactivation during speeded sentence reading

While it is commonly agreed upon that language comprehenders preactivate information at multiple levels, there is less consensus regarding what and when information is predicted, under which circumstances, and via which mechanism(s). Regarding when, Ito, Corley, Pickering, Martin, & Nieuwland (2016) concluded that during sentence processing, word form-unlike semantic-preactivation crucially relies on the time available to generate late-stage predictions via language production mechanisms, setting this limit between 500 and 700 ms/word. The current event-related brain potential (ERP) study tests this proposal at a substantially faster serial visual presentation (SVP) rate of four words/s, on par with normal reading. We utilize the experimental design and replicate the general ERP findings of the two words/s SVP study of DeLong, Chan, & Kutas (2019), with results showing similar N400 reductions to unpredictable sentence continuations whether semantically or orthographically related to contextually predictable words, as well as an increased late posterior positivity to orthographic neighbors. These findings indicate that processing of written word information can be rapidly facilitated through context-based expectancies, establishing that if there is a time constraint for word form preactivation, it must be far less than limits specified by the prediction-by-production comprehension model championed by Ito et al.

Literacy Advantages Beyond Reading: Prediction of Spoken Language

Literacy has many obvious benefits: it exposes the reader to a wealth of new information and enhances syntactic knowledge. However, we argue that literacy has an additional, often overlooked, benefit: it enhances people's ability to predict spoken language thereby aiding comprehension. Readers are under pressure to process information more quickly than listeners and reading provides excellent conditions - in particular, a stable environment - for training the predictive system. It also leads to increased awareness of words as linguistic units and to more fine-grained phonological and additional orthographic representations, which sharpen lexical representations and facilitate the retrieval of predicted representations. Thus, reading trains core processes and representations involved in language prediction that are common to both reading and listening.

The impact of skim reading and navigation when reading hyperlinks on the web

It has been shown that readers spend a great deal of time skim reading on the Web and that this type of reading can affect lexical processing of words. Across two experiments, we utilised eye tracking methodology to explore how hyperlinks and navigating webpages affect reading behaviour. In Experiment 1, participants read static Webpages either for comprehension or whilst skim reading, while in Experiment 2, participants additionally read through a navigable Web environment. Embedded target words were either hyperlinks or not and were either high-frequency or low-frequency words. Results from Experiment 1 show that while readers lexically process both linked and unlinked words when reading for comprehension, readers only fully lexically process linked words when skim reading, as was evidenced by a frequency effect that was absent for the unlinked words. They did fully lexically process both linked and unlinked words when reading for comprehension. In Experiment 2, which allowed for navigating, readers only fully lexically processed linked words compared to unlinked words, regardless of whether they were skim reading or reading for comprehension. We suggest that readers engage in an efficient reading strategy where they attempt to minimise comprehension loss while maintaining a high reading speed. Readers use hyperlinks as markers to suggest important information and use them to navigate through the text in an efficient and effective way. The task of reading on the Web causes readers to lexically process words in a markedly different way from typical reading experiments.

Literacy skill and intra-individual variability in eye-fixation durations during reading: Evidence from a diverse community-based adult sample

To understand the effects of literacy on fundamental processes involved in reading, we report a secondary data analysis examining individual differences in global eye-movement measures and first-pass eye-movement distributions in a diverse sample of community-dwelling adults aged 16 to 64. Participants (n = 80) completed an assessment battery probing verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities and read simple two-sentence passages while their eye movements were recorded. Analyses were focused on characterising the effects of literacy skill on both global indices of eye-fixation distributions and distributional differences in the sensitivity to lexical features. Global reading measures showed that lower literate adults read more slowly on average. However, distributional analyses of fixation durations revealed that the first-pass fixation durations of adults with lower literacy skill were not slower in general (i.e., there was no shift in the fixation duration distribution among lower literate adults). Instead, lower literacy was associated with greater intra-individual variability in first-pass fixation durations, including an increased proportion of extremely long fixations, differentially skewing the distribution of both first-fixation and gaze durations. Exploratory repeated-measures quantile regression analyses of gaze duration revealed differentially greater influences of word length among lower literate readers and greater activation of phonological and orthographic neighbours among higher literate readers, particularly in the tail of the distribution. Collectively, these findings suggest that literacy skill in adulthood is associated with systematic differences in both global and lexically driven eye-movement control during reading.

What the Eyes Hear: An Eye-Tracking Study on Phonological Awareness in Emirati Arabic

Phonological awareness is the ability to perceive and manipulate the sounds of spoken words. It is considered a good predictor of reading and spelling abilities. In the current study, we used an eye-tracking procedure to measure fixation differences while adults completed three conditions of phonological awareness in Emirati Arabic (EA): (1) explicit instructions for onset consonant matching (OCM), (2) implicit instructions for segmentation of initial consonant (SIC), and (3) rhyme matching (RM). We hypothesized that fixation indices would vary according to the experimental conditions. We expected explicit instructions to facilitate task performance. Thus, eye movements should reflect more efficient fixation patterns in the explicit OCM condition in comparison to the implicit SIC condition. Moreover, since Arabic is consonant-based, we hypothesized that participants would perform better in the consonant conditions (i.e., OCM and SIC) than in the rhyme condition (i.e., RM). Finally, we expected that providing feedback during practice trials would facilitate participants’ performance overall. Response accuracy, expressed as a percentage of correct responses, was recorded alongside eye movement data. Results show that performance was significantly compromised in the RM condition, where targets received more fixations of longer average duration, and significantly longer gaze durations in comparison to the OCM and SIC conditions. Response accuracy was also significantly lower in the RM condition. Our results indicate that eye-tracking can be used as a tool to test phonological awareness skills and shows differences in performance between tasks containing a vowel or consonant manipulation.

Accelerating reading via local priming

Visual nonlinguistic local and global priming can change one's state of mind and influence other upcoming tasks. Reading involves both detailed and higher-level global processing. Little is known about the effects of visual non-linguistic priming on lower level processing of words, as well as about the potentially higher-level processing of written information. In two experiments, the effects of global versus local priming on single word reading (Experiment 1) as well as text reading (Experiment 2) were investigated in adults. The results revealed facilitation effects of local priming on single word reading as well as on text reading rate, with no impairment of reading accuracy and comprehension. These novel results are further interpreted within different cognitive and neurological frameworks. In addition, clinical and research implications for the local/global attention and reading domain are discussed.

Quality of Patient Education Sections on Otitis Media Across Different Website Platforms

OBJECTIVE

To determine the quality, content, and readability of patient education materials pertaining to otitis media across several popular online platforms focused on otolaryngology and pediatric primary care education.

METHODS

Online patient materials related to otitis media and directed toward parents were collected from the American Association for Family Practice (AAFP), ENT-Health section of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Healthychildren.org from the American Academy of Pediatrics, KidsHealth from Nemours, WebMD, and Wikipedia. Materials were analyzed for quality, content, and readability. The DISCERN instrument was used to score quality. A unique content score was generated based on the information provided on each website and on the medical and surgical management of otitis media. Readability scores were calculated using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch Reading Ease Score, Gunning-Fog Index, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, Coleman-Liau Index, and Automated Readability Index.

RESULTS

Overall, content was well-balanced. Information from AAFP and Healthychildren.org was focused more on medical management than other sources. The average DISCERN scores showed all sources to be of good quality with minimal shortcomings. The AAFP and KidsHealth websites had some readability scores around the 8th-grade reading level, the National Institute of Health's upper limit recommended for public health information; however, most websites were above this recommended reading level.

CONCLUSION

Patient education materials related to otitis media on academic and certain popular internet sites are good sources to obtain high-quality information on the topic. Patient educational background, prior knowledge and understanding of otitis media, and physician-patient partnership goals should be taken into account when referring patients to online materials.

Gazepath: An eye-tracking analysis tool that accounts for individual differences and data quality

Eye-trackers are a popular tool for studying cognitive, emotional, and attentional processes in different populations (e.g., clinical and typically developing) and participants of all ages, ranging from infants to the elderly. This broad range of processes and populations implies that there are many inter- and intra-individual differences that need to be taken into account when analyzing eye-tracking data. Standard parsing algorithms supplied by the eye-tracker manufacturers are typically optimized for adults and do not account for these individual differences. This paper presents gazepath, an easy-to-use R-package that comes with a graphical user interface (GUI) implemented in Shiny (RStudio Inc 2015). The gazepath R-package combines solutions from the adult and infant literature to provide an eye-tracking parsing method that accounts for individual differences and differences in data quality. We illustrate the usefulness of gazepath with three examples of different data sets. The first example shows how gazepath performs on free-viewing data of infants and adults, compared to standard EyeLink parsing. We show that gazepath controls for spurious correlations between fixation durations and data quality in infant data. The second example shows that gazepath performs well in high-quality reading data of adults. The third and last example shows that gazepath can also be used on noisy infant data collected with a Tobii eye-tracker and low (60 Hz) sampling rate.

Matching Instruction with Modality-Specific Learning Style: Effects on Immediate Recall and Working Memory Performance

A well-known hypothesis in education and amongst the general public is that matching instructional method with an individual’s modality-specific learning style improves learning and cognitive performance. Several critical reviews in the past decade, however, have shown that the hypothesis has not been properly evaluated with appropriate methodology. Furthermore, the association between learning style and other cognitive abilities such as working memory has not been examined. Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine the association between modality-specific learning style, immediate recall, and working memory performance. University students with visual or auditory learning styles were randomly assigned to one of two instructional methods and then given a multiple-choice recall test. In addition, the participants completed working memory tasks with visual or auditory presentation. The results failed to support the matching hypothesis or any association between modality-specific learning style and working memory.

Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert

There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of "reading wars." Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children's earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work.