title: Perceptual span depends on font size during the reading of Chinese sentences.
abstract: The present study explored the perceptual span (i.e., the physical extent of an area from which useful visual information is extracted during a single fixation) during the reading of Chinese sentences in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, we tested whether the rightward span can go beyond 3 characters when visually similar masks were used. Results showed that Chinese readers needed at least 4 characters to the right of fixation to maintain a normal reading behavior when visually similar masks were used and when characters were displayed in small fonts, indicating that the span is dynamically influenced by masking materials. In Experiments 2 and 3, we asked whether the perceptual span varies as a function of font size in spaced (German) and unspaced (Chinese) scripts. Results clearly suggest perceptual span depends on font size in Chinese, but we failed to find such evidence for German. We propose that the perceptual span in Chinese is flexible; it is strongly constrained by its language-specific properties such as high information density and lack of word spacing. Implications for saccade-target selection during the reading of Chinese sentences are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Lab of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam.
authors.forename: Reinhold
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kliegl
mesh_terms: D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005133:Eye Movements; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011932:Reading