Tuesday, September 11, 2007


HIDDEN METHOD OF READING REVEALED


Reading is not as simple as scientists once thought
The mystery of how we read a sentence has been unlocked by scientists.


This from the BBC via Library Link of the Day.

Previously, researchers thought that, when reading, both eyes focused on the same letter of a word. But a UK team has found this is not always the case.
In fact, almost 50% of the time, each of our eyes locks on to different letters simultaneously.
At the BA Festival of Science in York, the researchers also revealed that our brain can fuse two separate images to obtain a clear view of a page.
Sophisticated eye-tracking equipment allowed the team to pinpoint which letter a volunteer's eyes focused on, when reading 14-point font from one metre away.
Rather than the eyes moving smoothly over text, they make small jerky movements, focusing on a particular word for an instant and then moving along the sentence. Periods when the eyes are still are called fixations.


Read the full story via the BBC link . The pic aboce came from the same source.

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