The Role of Eye Movements in Reading: Some Limitations of the Eye-Mind Assumption

The role of eye movements in reading is discussed and some limits of the eye-mind assumption are described, which accounts for a large proportion of the variance in fixation durations.

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of eye movements in reading. It describes some limits of the eye-mind assumption. The eye-attention assumption holds that, by recording the movements of the eye, an external observer may have access to the current contents of conscious processing. With stationary eyes, observers can attend a few degrees away from fixation, to make use of advance information about the location of target events. With saccadic eye-movements permitted, attention can be shown to move ahead of the eyes. These demonstrations of eye-movements and independent attention-movements across a two-dimensional space are further qualified when the dimension of depth is added to the display. Under very specific conditions attention can be switched from one scene to another without any ocular indication of a movement. For the eye-mind assumption to hold, the evidence would need to demonstrate that all processing of an object is completed during its inspection. In addition, the eye-mind assumption accounts for a large proportion of the variance in fixation durations.