The perceptual span and eye–hand span of pianists were examined while they played and read single-line melodies (with four beats per measure). The perceptual span was measured by the use of a moving-window technique with four window conditions: two beats, four beats, six beats, or no window. It was found that pianists need to see no more than the whole measure that they are fixating in order to...

Background & Aims:  Recently, the role of English has shifted from the more general perspective of every day usage to a narrower situation and task specific perspective. Many experts in the field argue that Learners need English for a particular task or a field of study and successful courses are those that concentrate on one particular area in teaching English.  Accordingly, the pr...

This study examines the effects of working memory capacity and content familiarity on literal and inferential comprehension in second language (L2) reading. Participants were 62 Turkish university students with an advanced English proficiency level. Working memory capacity was measured through a computerized version of a reading span test, whereas content familiarity was achieved through nativi...

In this paper we describe a method for analyzing the reading comprehension task. First, we describe a method of classifying facts (information) into categories or levels; where each level signifies a different degree of difficulty of extracting a fact from a piece of text containing it. We then proceed to show how one can use this model the analyze the complexity of the reading comprehension ta...

Models of eye guidance in reading rely on the concept of the perceptual span-the amount of information perceived during a single eye fixation, which is considered to be a consequence of visual and attentional constraints. To directly investigate attentional mechanisms underlying the perceptual span, we implemented a new reading paradigm-parafoveal magnification (PM)-that compensates for how vis...

Eye movements are now widely used to investigate cognitive processes during reading, scene perception, and visual search. In this article, research on the following topics is reviewed with respect to reading: (a) the perceptual span (or span of effective vision), (b) preview benefit, (c) eye movement control, and (d) models of eye movements. Related issues with respect to eye movements during s...