Deafness enhances perceptual span size in Chinese reading: Evidence from a gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm

Using a gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm, we investigated whether/how deafness affects perceptual processing in Chinese reading. Besides the manipulation of window size, word length of sentences used in the experiment was also manipulated to check whether deafness enhanced the word length effect on perceptual span. Significant interactions of window constraints and deafness and a three-way interaction were observed on reading rate. Smaller effects of window constraints for deaf Chinese readers and nonreliable three-way interactions were observed on forward saccade length. This suggests that deaf Chinese readers exhibit a larger perceptual span, and word length affected the span from which information was acquired for comprehension whereas both deafness and word length might have little impact on the span from which information is acquired for oculomotor targeting during natural reading of Chinese.