Perceptual and Cognitive Factors Imposing “Speed Limits” on Reading Rate: A Study with the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Adults read at high speed, but estimates of their reading rate vary greatly, i.e., from 100 to 1500 words per minute (wpm). This discrepancy is likely due to different recording methods and to the different perceptual and cognitive processes involved in specific test conditions. The present study investigated the origins of these notable differences in RSVP reading rate (RR). In six experiments we investigated the role of many different perceptual and cognitive variables. The presence of a mask caused a steep decline in reading rate, with an estimated masking cost of about 200 wpm. When the decoding process was isolated, RR approached values of 1200 wpm. When the number of stimuli exceeded the short-term memory span, RR decreased to 800 wpm. The semantic context contributed to reading speed only by a factor of 1.4. Finally, eye movements imposed an upper limit on RR (around 300 wpm). Overall, data indicate a speed limit of 300 wpm, which corresponds to the time needed for eye movement execution, i.e., the most time consuming mechanism. Results reconcile differences in reading rates reported by different laboratories and thus provide suggestions for targeting different components of reading rate.

[1]  Mary C. Potter,et al.  Rapid serial visual presentation (rsvp): a method for studying language processing , 2018 .

[2]  Rebecca Treiman,et al.  So Much to Read, So Little Time , 2016, Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society.

[3]  Alexander P. Leff,et al.  Facilitating text reading in posterior cortical atrophy , 2015, Neurology.

[4]  Thierry Baccino,et al.  Rapid serial visual presentation in reading: The case of Spritz , 2015, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[5]  Y. Yeshurun,et al.  Temporal crowding and its interplay with spatial crowding. , 2015, Journal of vision.

[6]  Denis G Pelli,et al.  A double dissociation of the acuity and crowding limits to letter identification, and the promise of improved visual screening. , 2014, Journal of vision.

[7]  Uri Polat,et al.  Uncovering foveal crowding? , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[8]  D. Spinelli,et al.  The eye-voice lead during oral reading in developmental dyslexia , 2013, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[9]  D. Spinelli,et al.  Multiple stimulus presentation yields larger deficits in children with developmental dyslexia: A study with reading and RAN-type tasks , 2013, Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence.

[10]  G. Legge,et al.  Sensory and cognitive influences on the training-related improvement of reading speed in peripheral vision. , 2013, Journal of vision.

[11]  Denis G. Pelli,et al.  Substitution and pooling in crowding , 2011, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[12]  A. Nobre,et al.  Alpha Oscillations Related to Anticipatory Attention Follow Temporal Expectations , 2011, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[13]  Gordon E. Legge,et al.  Spatial-frequency requirements for reading revisited , 2011, Vision Research.

[14]  A. Inhoff,et al.  Temporal dynamics of the eye–voice span and eye movement control during oral reading , 2011 .

[15]  D. Levi,et al.  Visual crowding: a fundamental limit on conscious perception and object recognition , 2011, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[16]  E. Warrington,et al.  Abnormal visual phenomena in posterior cortical atrophy , 2011, Neurocase.

[17]  Marco Zorzi,et al.  Beyond single syllables: Large-scale modeling of reading aloud with the Connectionist Dual Process (CDP++) model , 2010, Cognitive Psychology.

[18]  Hye-Won Lee,et al.  Training improves reading speed in peripheral vision: is it due to attention? , 2010, Journal of vision.

[19]  Gordon E. Legge,et al.  Reading horizontal and vertical english text , 2010 .

[20]  René Marois,et al.  Both exogenous and endogenous target salience manipulations support resource depletion accounts of the attentional blink , 2010 .

[21]  G. Legge,et al.  Comparing reading speed for horizontal and vertical English text. , 2010, Journal of vision.

[22]  Alejandro Lleras,et al.  Temporal tuning and attentional gating: Two distinct attentional mechanisms on the perception of rapid serial visual events , 2009, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[23]  K. Rayner.  The 35th Sir Frederick Bartlett Lecture: Eye movements and attention in reading, scene perception, and visual search , 2009, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[24]  Christopher L Asplund,et al.  Both exogenous and endogenous target salience manipulations support resource depletion accounts of the attentional blink: A reply to Olivers, Spalek, Kawahara, and Di Lollo (2009) , 2009, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[25]  D. Pelli,et al.  The uncrowded window of object recognition , 2008, Nature Neuroscience.

[26]  Christopher L. Asplund,et al.  An attentional blink for sequentially presented targets: Evidence in favor of resource depletion accounts , 2008, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[27]  Manuel Perea,et al.  The overlap model: a model of letter position coding. , 2008, Psychological review.

[28]  Kazuhiko Yokosawa,et al.  Attentional awakening: gradual modulation of temporal attention in rapid serial visual presentation , 2008, Psychological research.

[29]  Tracey D. Berger,et al.  Crowding and eccentricity determine reading rate. , 2007, Journal of vision.

[30]  D. Pelli,et al.  Parts, Wholes, and Context in Reading: A Triple Dissociation , 2007, PloS one.

[31]  Sing-Hang Cheung,et al.  Effect of letter spacing on visual span and reading speed. , 2007, Journal of vision.

[32]  Christopher L. Asplund,et al.  Isolation of a Central Bottleneck of Information Processing with Time-Resolved fMRI , 2006, Neuron.

[33]  Jonathan Grainger,et al.  On the Time Course of Visual Word Recognition: An Event-related Potential Investigation using Masked Repetition Priming , 2006, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[34]  Gordon E Legge,et al.  Low-Vision Reading Speed: Influences of Linguistic Inference and Aging , 2006, Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry.

[35]  G. Legge,et al.  Developmental changes in the visual span for reading , 2005, Vision Research.

[36]  U. Polat,et al.  Spatial interactions in amblyopia: Effects of stimulus parameters and amblyopia type , 2005, Vision Research.

[37]  D. Pelli,et al.  Crowding is unlike ordinary masking: distinguishing feature integration from detection. , 2004, Journal of vision.

[38]  Kinjiro Amano,et al.  Color constancy: stimulus or task , 2004 .

[39]  V. Coltheart,et al.  Effects of orthographic and phonological word length on memory for lists shown at RSVP and STM rates. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[40]  U. Polat,et al.  Spatial and temporal crowding in amblyopia , 2004, Vision Research.

[41]  Uri Polat,et al.  Temporal asymmetry of collinear lateral interactions , 2004, Vision Research.

[42]  Cristina Burani,et al.  Visual processing of Italian verbs and adjectives: The role of the inflectional family size , 2003 .

[43]  Cristina Burani,et al.  Word naming times and psycholinguistic norms for Italian nouns , 2002, Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.

[44]  Manuel Perea,et al.  Does “whole-word shape” play a role in visual word recognition? , 2002, Perception & psychophysics.

[45]  L. Colombo,et al.  The Influence of Age of Acquisition, Root Frequency, and Context Availability in Processing Nouns and Verbs , 2002, Brain and Language.

[46]  Susana T. L. Chung.  The effect of letter spacing on reading speed in central and peripheral vision. , 2002, Investigative ophthalmology & visual science.

[47]  Gordon E Legge,et al.  Psychophysics of reading XX. Linking letter recognition to reading speed in central and peripheral vision , 2001, Vision Research.

[48]  J. Enns,et al.  What’s new in visual masking? , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[49]  K L Petre,et al.  Are the benefits of sentence context different in central and peripheral vision? , 1999, Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry.

[50]  Gordon E. Legge,et al.  Psychophysics of reading. XVIII. The effect of print size on reading speed in normal peripheral vision , 1998, Vision Research.

[51]  Dean Yager,et al.  High and low luminance letters, acuity reserve, and font effects on reading speed , 1998, Vision Research.

[52]  A. Reeves,et al.  Simulated cataract does not reduce the benefit of RSVP , 1997, Vision Research.

[53]  E Peli,et al.  The Role of Context in Reading with Central Field Loss , 1996, Optometry and vision science : official publication of the American Academy of Optometry.

[54]  R. G. Crowder,et al.  Distinctiveness and very short-term serial position effects. , 1996, Memory.

[55]  M. Potter,et al.  A two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[56]  Gary S. Rubin,et al.  Reading without saccadic eye movements , 1992, Vision Research.

[57]  R. Mccarthy.  Working Memory. (Oxford Psychology Series No. 11.) , 1987 .

[58]  A. Remole.  VISUAL MASKING: AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH , 1985 .

[59]  D. Balota,et al.  The interaction of contextual constraints and parafoveal visual information in reading , 1985, Cognitive Psychology.

[60]  K. Rayner,et al.  Eye Movements in Reading: Perceptual and Language Processes , 1985 .

[61]  M. Woodroofe,et al.  An analysis of contractile proteins in developing chick heart by SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and electron microscopy. , 1983, Journal of embryology and experimental morphology.

[62]  A. Watson,et al.  Quest: A Bayesian adaptive psychometric method , 1983, Perception & psychophysics.

[63]  Ronald P. Carver,et al.  Optimal Rate of Reading Prose. , 1982 .

[64]  G. S. Wasserman,et al.  Visual masking: mechanisms and theories. , 1980, Psychological bulletin.

[65]  G. McConkie,et al.  What guides a reader's eye movements? , 1976, Vision Research.

[66]  Kenneth I. Forster,et al.  Visual perception of rapidly presented word sequences of varying complexity , 1970 .

[67]  John Morton,et al.  The Effects of Context upon Speed of Reading, Eye Movements and Eye-voice Span , 1964 .

[68]  D. Spinelli,et al.  Bridging the gap between different measures of the reading speed deficit in developmental dyslexia , 2013, Experimental Brain Research.

[69]  Elizabeth R Schotter,et al.  Eye Movements in Reading PERCEPTUAL AND LANGUAGE PROCESSES , 2013 .

[70]  Zoe Fox,et al.  The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 2008 .

[71]  Ching-Jen Chen,et al.  Flow visualization of bubble collapse flow , 2007, J. Vis..

[72]  J. Enns,et al.  The attentional blink: Resource depletion or temporary loss of control? , 2005, Psychological research.

[73]  C. Burani,et al.  Accesso lessicale e lettura ad alta voce: il ruolo delle componenti morfologiche delle parole , 2004 .

[74]  Ronald P. Carver,et al.  Reading for One Second, One Minute, or One Year From the Perspective of Rauding Theory , 1997 .

[75]  Ronald P. Carver,et al.  Reading Rate: Theory, Research, and Practical Implications. , 1992 .

[76]  L. C. Gilbert.  Saccadic movements as a factor in visual perception in reading. , 1959 .

[77]  L. C. Gilbert.  Speed of processing visual stimuli and its relation to reading. , 1959 .

[78]  G. T. Buswell.  The relationship between eye-perception and voice-response in reading , 1921 .

[79]  Montserrat Comesaña,et al.  The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology on the Role of the Upper Part of Words in Lexical Access: Evidence with Masked Priming , 2022 .