A Challenge to Current Theories of Eye Movements in Reading.

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to precisely lay out and to test the predictions of two recent theories of eye movements in reading as concerns the within-word eye behavior: 'attention-type' theories where the main determinant of eye movements is the on-going visual and linguistic processing of the encountered words, and the 'Strategy-Tactics' theory where pre-determined oculomotor strategies are the main driving force of the eyes during reading. A comparison of the predictions made by both theories with the data available in the literature as concerns the probability of refixating words revealed that neither of the theories can account for the observed data and that an alternative theory is needed which takes into account both the influence of on-going processing and pre-determined oculomotor tactics as well as visuomotor constraints. Furthermore, an examination of the relative durations of fixations in the 1- and 2-fixations cases showed that the mechanism which is responsible for within-word refixations cannot be an oculomotor deadline as assumed in the 'attention-type' theory. Possible revisions of both theories are therefore proposed.

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