CHAPTER 20
Reading
KEITH RAYNER, ALEXANDER POLLATSEK, AND MATTHEW S. STARR
549METHODS USED TO STUDY WORD IDENTIFICATION 550
WORD IDENTIFICATION 550
Do We Recognize Words Through the Component
Letters? 551
Automaticity of Word Encoding 552
Word Encoding in Nonalphabetic Languages 553
SOUND CODING IN WORD IDENTIFICATION
AND READING 554
The Access of Sound Codes 554
Sound Codes and the Access of Word Meanings 556
Summary 557
EYE MOVEMENTS IN READING 557
Basic Facts About Eye Movements 558
The Perceptual Span 559
The Acquisition of Information to the Right
of Fixation 561
Integration of Information Across Fixations 561
Summary 563
WORD IDENTIFICATION IN CONTEXT 563
Resolution of Ambiguity 564
Summary 566
MODELS OF EYE MOVEMENT CONTROL 566
CONCLUSIONS 568
REFERENCES 569Reading is a vast topic to which entire textbooks are devoted
(Crowder & Wagner, 1992; Just & Carpenter, 1987; Rayner
& Pollatsek, 1989). We have selected five topics within the
field of reading that seem particularly relevant in the context
of the present volume (see also the chapters by Butcher &
Kintsch; Treiman, Clifton, Meyer, & Wurm in this volume
for topics relevant to reading). The topics we have chosen,
and think are central to understanding skilled reading (as op-
posed to understanding language comprehension in general)
are (a) visual word identification, (b) the role of sound coding
in word identification and reading, (c) eye movements during
reading, (d) word identification in context, and (e) eye move-
ment control in reading.
Before discussing each of these five topics, we would like
to place them in context by listing what we see as the central
questions in the psychology of reading:
1.How are printed words identified?
2.How does the speech processing system interact with
word identification and reading?
3.Are printed words identified differently in isolation than
in text?
4.How does the fact that readers typically make about four to
five eye movements per second affect the reading process?5.How does the reader go beyond the meaning of individ-
ual words? This question relates to how sentences are
parsed, how the literal meaning of a sentence is con-
structed, how anaphoric links are established, how infer-
ences are made, and so on.
6.What is the end product of reading? What new mental
structures are formed or retained as a result of reading?
7.How does the skill of reading develop?
8.How can we characterize individual differences among
readers in the same culture and differences in readers
across cultures?
9.How can we characterize reading disabilities?
10.Can we improve on so-called normal reading? Is speed-
reading possible?These 10 questions typically represent the chapters in
textbooks on the psychology of reading (Crowder & Wag-
ner, 1992; Just & Carpenter, 1987; Rayner & Pollatsek,
1989). The topics we discuss here have been studied exten-
sively by experimental psychologists for the past 25 years.
Prior to discussing word identification per se, we briefly re-
view the primary methods that have been used to study word
identification. In most word identification experiments,