Readers Experience Tunnel Vision in the Important Parts of the Text
While reading, a person can momentarily experience the so-called tunnel vision phenomenon. The study of researchers from Turku was published in the esteemed Psychological Science journal and the results are significant as they indicate that the functional visual field is flexible during reading.
The human functional visual field is rather limited. With one glance, people can usually see only 6– 8 marks at a time from normal reading distance. Practically, the functional visual field only covers one word at a time.
Previous studies have shown that the reader can identify only the shape of the words that are outside the fixation point of the gaze, for example, whether small or capital letters are used or if the letters extend above or under the line.
Johanna K. Kaakkinen and Jukka Hyönä, who are researchers at the Department of Psychology of the University of Turku, found out that, while reading, humans can experience tunnel vision which narrows the functional visual field.
Attention Depends on the Reading Task
In their research, Kaakinen and Höynä used a so-called invisible threshold method which follows the eye movement of the readers while they are reading. In this method, a change is made on the text screen when the reader’s gaze moves from one word to another and crosses the invisible threshold between the words. First, the target word was a random line of letters (e.g. tswerk), but it was changed into an actual word when the reader’s gaze moves over the invisible threshold.
In earlier studies, in which eye movements were closely followed, researchers found out that the reading of a word is slowed down if the shape of the word is changed on the screen. However, Kaakinen and Hyönä discovered that the reader will not notice the change in the text if it is made at a point which relevant to the reading task. On the other hand, the changes are noticeable in those parts that are irrelevant to the reading task.
–Our results indicate that the text’s relevance to the reading task can induce a momentary narrowing of the functional visual field, i.e. tunnel vision. The reader perceives only the word where the gaze is fixed and does not detect that there is a strange and meaningless combination of letters immediately to the right, says Kaakinen.
The novel research results suggest that the reading task affects the observation and attention processes much more strongly than what has been thought before.
The research was published in the January 2014 online edition of Psychological Science journal.
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/01/03/0956797613512332.full.pdf+html
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