Haptic scanning of braille cells by low- and high-proficiency blind readers

A cell-by-cell analysis of finger movements of blind braille readers was conducted to separate, catalogue, and measure the components of scanning movements across braille cells as a function of reading proficiency. Particular attention was paid to the hypothesis that low- and high-proficiency readers could be differentiated by scanning differences on cells over which the finger paused. On cells containing pauses, high-proficiency readers paused for significantly longer durations than did low-proficiency readers, and left-finger pause duration was longer than right-finger pause duration. High-proficiency readers paused on fewer cells with the right finger than did low-proficiency readers. Finger speed (time to traverse a cell independent of pauses and direction changes and expressed in cells per second) was unaffected by reading proficiency. Left-finger speed was faster than right-finger speed, and backward scanning was faster than forward scanning. High-proficiency readers scanned almost twice as many cells with two hands as did low-proficiency readers. These results confirm earlier reports of the superiority of bimanual reading, and suggest that the two hands may perform different functions, allowing pausing for rescanning to occur simultaneously with reading new material.