Peripheral Vision, Refractoriness and Eye Movements in Fast Oral Reading

Naval ratings read typescript aloud through a window whose speed and size varied systematically in different trials. Eye movements were recorded electrically. Errors increased significantly as the window was reduced from a full line to five words, probably as a result of the tighter pacing and reduced peripheral vision. Regressions were unaffected. This is a serious criticism of reading films using windows to ‘improve’ the reading of adults. Errors rose steeply to 40% as the time for which letters were exposed fell from 0·3 to 0·2 sec.; fixations did not increase in frequency. Thus in reading the visual system behaves like a single‐shot camera firing at not more than about five times per second.