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Updated: May 18, 2026
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Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
Both lexical and non-lexical characters are processed during saccadic eye movements
Hao Zhang1, Hong-Mei Yan, Keith M Kendrick
1Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
Plos One
|October 3, 2012
Summary
During reading, saccadic eye movements allow for information processing, not just redirection. This pre-processing enhances reading continuity and comprehension by analyzing characters during eye motion.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Ophthalmology
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Saccadic eye movements are crucial for reading, occurring 3-5 times per second.
- Traditionally, information processing was believed to occur only during fixation, with suppression during saccades.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether character discrimination is possible during saccadic eye movements.
- To determine the role of saccades in reading comprehension and information processing.
Main Methods:
- A paradigm was used where lexical (Chinese) and non-lexical (alphabetic) character strings were triggered by saccadic eye movements.
- Discrimination accuracy was measured for characters scanned during and beyond the saccade to a fixation point.
Main Results:
- Subjects could discriminate both lexical and non-lexical characters during saccadic eye movements.
- Discrimination accuracy was significantly higher for characters scanned during the saccade compared to those not scanned.
Conclusions:
- Character information is processed during saccades, challenging previous assumptions.
- Saccades actively contribute to reading by pre-processing adjacent information, enhancing targeting and comprehension.
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