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Word skipping in deaf and hearing bilinguals: Cognitive control over eye movements remains with increased perceptual span

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2021

Matthew J. Traxler Open the ORCID record for Matthew J. Traxler [Opens in a new window] ,
Timothy Banh ,
Madeline M. Craft ,
Kurt Winsler ,
Trevor A. Brothers ,
Liv J. Hoversten ,
Pilar Piñar  and
David P. Corina
Matthew J. Traxler*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Timothy Banh
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Madeline M. Craft
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Kurt Winsler
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Trevor A. Brothers
Affiliation:
Tufts University
Liv J. Hoversten
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
Pilar Piñar
Affiliation:
Gallaudet University
David P. Corina
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
*
*Correspondence author: E-mail: mjtraxler@ucdavis.edu.
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Abstract

Deaf readers may have larger perceptual spans than ability-matched hearing native English readers, allowing them to read more efficiently (Belanger & Rayner, 2015). To further test the hypothesis that deaf and hearing readers have different perceptual spans, the current study uses eye-movement data from two experiments in which deaf American Sign Language–English bilinguals, hearing native English speakers, and hearing Chinese–English bilinguals read semantically unrelated sentences and answered comprehension questions after a proportion of them. We analyzed skip rates, fixation times, and accuracy on comprehension questions. In addition, we analyzed how lexical properties of words affected skipping behavior and fixation durations. Deaf readers skipped words more often than native English speakers, who skipped words more often than Chinese–English bilinguals. Deaf readers had shorter first-pass fixation times than the other two groups. All groups’ skipping behaviors were affected by lexical frequency. Deaf readers’ comprehension did not differ from hearing Chinese–English bilinguals, despite greater skipping and shorter fixation times. Overall, the eye-tracking findings align with Belanger’s word processing efficiency hypothesis. Effects of lexical frequency on skipping behavior indicated further that eye movements during reading remain under cognitive control in deaf readers.

Keywords

deafnesseye-trackingliteracyperceptual spanreading
Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , May 2021 , pp. 601 - 630
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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