Do visual and attentional factors predict reading skills? by Veronica Montani (BLRI, AMU)
Visual-attentional abilities have a prominent role in reading. Reading rate is constrained by the number of letters acquired at each fixation, i.e. the visual span, that in turn seems to be mainly determined by the effect of crowding. On the other hand, spatial attention is critically involved in reading process, in particular for the phonological decoding of unfamiliar strings. I will briefly review studies that investigated the role of low-level processing factors in reading and their possible implication in reading disorders. Furthermore, I will present new data that show the distinct contribution of different visual-attentional factors on various reading measures, such as text reading, word naming and eye movements.
