Julie Kirkby | Bournemouth University (original) (raw)

Papers by Julie Kirkby

Research paper thumbnail of What Are the Costs of Degraded Parafoveal Previews During Silent Reading?

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

It has been suggested that the preview benefit effect is actually a combination of preview benefi... more It has been suggested that the preview benefit effect is actually a combination of preview benefit and preview costs. Marx et al. (2015) proposed that visually degrading the parafoveal preview reduces the costs associated with traditional parafoveal letter masks used in the boundary paradigm (Rayner,1975), thus leading to a more neutral baseline. We report two experiments of skilled adults reading silently. In Experiment 1, we found no compelling evidence that degraded previews reduced processing costs associated with traditional letter masks. Moreover, participants were highly sensitive to detecting degraded display changes. Experiment 2 utilized the boundary detection paradigm (Slattery, Angele, & Rayner, 2011) to explore whether participants were capable of detecting actual letter changes or if they were responding purely to changes in degradation. Half of the participants were instructed to respond to any noticed display changes; the other half were instructed to respond only to changes in letter identities. Participants were highly sensitive to degraded changes. In fact, these changes were so apparent that they reduced the sensitivity to letter masks. In the context of the model proposed by Angele, Slattery, and Rayner (2016), we suggest that degraded previews interfere with the attentional stage, as evidenced by the general lack of foveal load effects. In summary, we found that increasingly degrading parafoveal letter masks does not reduce their processing costs in adults, but that both degraded valid and invalid previews introduce additional costs in terms of greater display change awareness.

Research paper thumbnail of Using Eye Movements to Understand Cognitive Processing During Copying From the Board

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks

Psychological bulletin, 2008

The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading an... more The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks in adult, child, and dyslexic populations. The review begins with a description of the basic characteristics of eye movements during reading. Then, reading and non-reading studies investigating binocular coordination are evaluated. Areas of future research in the field are identified and discussed. Finally, some general conclusions are made regarding binocular coordination. The review demonstrates that findings from traditionally independent areas of research are largely consistent and complementary. Throughout the review, theoretical and methodological commonalities are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding of this fundamental aspect of human visual processing.

Research paper thumbnail of Examining hardware and software differences as a causal factor for the ongoing dispute in the binocular coordination literature

Research paper thumbnail of Multimodality with Eye tracking and Haptics: A New Horizon for Serious Games?

The goal of this review is to illustrate the emerging use of multimodal virtual reality that can ... more The goal of this review is to illustrate the emerging use of multimodal virtual reality that can benefit learning-based games. The review begins with an introduction to multimodal virtual reality in serious games and we provide a brief discussion of why cognitive processes involved in learning and training are enhanced under immersive virtual environments. We initially outline studies that have used eye tracking and haptic feedback independently in serious games, and then review some innovative applications that have already combined eye tracking and haptic devices in order to provide applicable multimodal frameworks for learning-based games. Finally, some general conclusions are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding in multimodal serious game production as well as exploring possible areas for new applications.

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during reading

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011

... Divisions: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences > Psychology > Cognition. ePrint ID: 19... more ... Divisions: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences > Psychology > Cognition. ePrint ID: 199865. Deposited By: Miss Hazel Blythe. Deposited On: 21 Oct 2011 10:08. Last Modified: 21 Oct 2011 10:08. Associated Staff Only: edit my ePrint. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Lexical processing in children and adults during word copying

Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2014

Copying text may seem trivial, but the task itself is psychologically complex. It involves a seri... more Copying text may seem trivial, but the task itself is psychologically complex. It involves a series of sequential visual and cognitive processes, which must be co-ordinated; these include visual encoding, mental representation and written production. To investigate the time course of word processing during copying, we recorded eye movements of adults and children as they hand-copied isolated words presented on a classroom board. Longer and lower frequency words extended adults' encoding durations, suggesting whole word encoding. Only children's short word encoding was extended by lower frequency. Though children spent more time encoding long words compared to short words, gaze durations for long words were extended similarly for high-and low-frequency words. This suggested that for long words children used partial word representations and encoded multiple sublexical units rather than single whole words. Piecemeal word representation underpinned copying longer words in children, but reliance on partial word representations was not shown in adult readers.

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during scanning of simple dot stimuli

Vision Research, 2010

We examined the influence of a variety of visual factors on binocular coordination during saccadi... more We examined the influence of a variety of visual factors on binocular coordination during saccadic orienting. Some experimental conditions placed similar demands on the oculomotor system as those that occur during reading, but in the absence of linguistic processing. We examined whether saccade target extent, preceding saccade magnitude, preceding saccade direction, and parafoveal availability of saccade target influenced fixation disparity. Disparities similar in magnitude and frequency to those obtained in previous binocular reading experiments occurred. Saccade magnitude had a robust influence upon fixation disparities. The results are very similar to those obtained in investigations of binocular coordination during reading, and indicate that similar patterns occur during reading-like eye scanning behaviour, in the absence of linguistic processing.

Research paper thumbnail of The influence of word shading and word length on eye movements during reading

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks

Psychological Bulletin, 2008

The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading an... more The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks in adult, child, and dyslexic populations. The review begins with a description of the basic characteristics of eye movements during reading. Then, reading and non-reading studies investigating binocular coordination are evaluated. Areas of future research in the field are identified and discussed. Finally, some general conclusions are made regarding binocular coordination. The review demonstrates that findings from traditionally independent areas of research are largely consistent and complementary. Throughout the review, theoretical and methodological commonalities are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding of this fundamental aspect of human visual processing.

Research paper thumbnail of Reading Text Increases Binocular Disparity in Dyslexic Children

PLoS ONE, 2011

Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite bei... more Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite being matched on IQ, socio-economic background, and educational opportunities. The neurological and cognitive basis of dyslexia remains a highly debated topic. Proponents of the magnocellular theory, which postulates abnormalities in the M-stream of the visual pathway cause developmental dyslexia, claim that children with dyslexia have deficient binocular coordination, and this is the underlying cause of developmental dyslexia. We measured binocular coordination during reading and a non-linguistic scanning task in three participant groups: adults, typically developing children, and children with dyslexia. A significant increase in fixation disparity was observed for dyslexic children solely when reading. Our study casts serious doubts on the claims of the magnocellular theory. The exclusivity of increased fixation disparity in dyslexics during reading might be a result of the allocation of inadequate attentional and/or cognitive resources to the reading process, or suboptimal linguistic processing per se.

Research paper thumbnail of The influence of Experience upon Threat Assessment and Visual Search in Complex Scenes

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination: Reading stereoscopic sentences in depth

Journal of Vision, 2010

The present study employs a stereoscopic manipulation to present sentences in three dimensions to... more The present study employs a stereoscopic manipulation to present sentences in three dimensions to subjects as they read for comprehension. Subjects read sentences with (a) no depth cues, (b) a monocular depth cue that implied the sentence loomed out of the screen (i.e., increasing retinal size), (c) congruent monocular and binocular (retinal disparity) depth cues (i.e., both implied the sentence loomed out of the screen) and (d) incongruent monocular and binocular depth cues (i.e., the monocular cue implied the sentence loomed out of the screen and the binocular cue implied it receded behind the screen). Reading efficiency was mostly unaffected, suggesting that reading in three dimensions is similar to reading in two dimensions. Importantly, fixation disparity was driven by retinal disparity; fixations were significantly more crossed as readers progressed through the sentence in the congruent condition and significantly more uncrossed in the incongruent condition. We conclude that disparity depth cues are used on-line to drive binocular coordination during reading.

Research paper thumbnail of Investigating eye movement acquisition and analysis technologies as a causal factor in differential prevalence of crossed and uncrossed fixation disparity during reading and dot scanning

Behavior Research Methods, 2013

Previous studies examining binocular coordination during reading have reported conflicting result... more Previous studies examining binocular coordination during reading have reported conflicting results in terms of the nature of disparity (e.g. ). One potential cause of this inconsistency is differences in acquisition devices and associated analysis technologies. We tested this by directly comparing binocular eye movement recordings made using SR Research EyeLink 1000 and the Fourward Technologies Inc. DPI binocular eyetracking systems. Participants read sentences or scanned horizontal rows of dot strings; for each participant, half the data were recorded with the EyeLink, and the other half with the DPIs. The viewing conditions in both testing laboratories were set to be very similar. Monocular calibrations were used. The majority of fixations recorded using either system were aligned, although data from the EyeLink system showed greater disparity magnitudes. Critically, for unaligned fixations, the data from both systems showed a majority of uncrossed fixations. These results suggest that variability in previous reports of binocular fixation alignment is attributable to the specific viewing conditions associated with a particular experiment (variables such as luminance and viewing distance), rather than acquisition and analysis software and hardware.

Research paper thumbnail of Eye movements affirm: Automatic overt gaze and arrow cueing for typical adults and adults with autism spectrum disorder

Experimental brain …, Jan 1, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of What Are the Costs of Degraded Parafoveal Previews During Silent Reading?

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

It has been suggested that the preview benefit effect is actually a combination of preview benefi... more It has been suggested that the preview benefit effect is actually a combination of preview benefit and preview costs. Marx et al. (2015) proposed that visually degrading the parafoveal preview reduces the costs associated with traditional parafoveal letter masks used in the boundary paradigm (Rayner,1975), thus leading to a more neutral baseline. We report two experiments of skilled adults reading silently. In Experiment 1, we found no compelling evidence that degraded previews reduced processing costs associated with traditional letter masks. Moreover, participants were highly sensitive to detecting degraded display changes. Experiment 2 utilized the boundary detection paradigm (Slattery, Angele, & Rayner, 2011) to explore whether participants were capable of detecting actual letter changes or if they were responding purely to changes in degradation. Half of the participants were instructed to respond to any noticed display changes; the other half were instructed to respond only to changes in letter identities. Participants were highly sensitive to degraded changes. In fact, these changes were so apparent that they reduced the sensitivity to letter masks. In the context of the model proposed by Angele, Slattery, and Rayner (2016), we suggest that degraded previews interfere with the attentional stage, as evidenced by the general lack of foveal load effects. In summary, we found that increasingly degrading parafoveal letter masks does not reduce their processing costs in adults, but that both degraded valid and invalid previews introduce additional costs in terms of greater display change awareness.

Research paper thumbnail of Using Eye Movements to Understand Cognitive Processing During Copying From the Board

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks

Psychological bulletin, 2008

The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading an... more The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks in adult, child, and dyslexic populations. The review begins with a description of the basic characteristics of eye movements during reading. Then, reading and non-reading studies investigating binocular coordination are evaluated. Areas of future research in the field are identified and discussed. Finally, some general conclusions are made regarding binocular coordination. The review demonstrates that findings from traditionally independent areas of research are largely consistent and complementary. Throughout the review, theoretical and methodological commonalities are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding of this fundamental aspect of human visual processing.

Research paper thumbnail of Examining hardware and software differences as a causal factor for the ongoing dispute in the binocular coordination literature

Research paper thumbnail of Multimodality with Eye tracking and Haptics: A New Horizon for Serious Games?

The goal of this review is to illustrate the emerging use of multimodal virtual reality that can ... more The goal of this review is to illustrate the emerging use of multimodal virtual reality that can benefit learning-based games. The review begins with an introduction to multimodal virtual reality in serious games and we provide a brief discussion of why cognitive processes involved in learning and training are enhanced under immersive virtual environments. We initially outline studies that have used eye tracking and haptic feedback independently in serious games, and then review some innovative applications that have already combined eye tracking and haptic devices in order to provide applicable multimodal frameworks for learning-based games. Finally, some general conclusions are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding in multimodal serious game production as well as exploring possible areas for new applications.

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during reading

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011

... Divisions: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences > Psychology > Cognition. ePrint ID: 19... more ... Divisions: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences > Psychology > Cognition. ePrint ID: 199865. Deposited By: Miss Hazel Blythe. Deposited On: 21 Oct 2011 10:08. Last Modified: 21 Oct 2011 10:08. Associated Staff Only: edit my ePrint. ...

Research paper thumbnail of Lexical processing in children and adults during word copying

Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2014

Copying text may seem trivial, but the task itself is psychologically complex. It involves a seri... more Copying text may seem trivial, but the task itself is psychologically complex. It involves a series of sequential visual and cognitive processes, which must be co-ordinated; these include visual encoding, mental representation and written production. To investigate the time course of word processing during copying, we recorded eye movements of adults and children as they hand-copied isolated words presented on a classroom board. Longer and lower frequency words extended adults' encoding durations, suggesting whole word encoding. Only children's short word encoding was extended by lower frequency. Though children spent more time encoding long words compared to short words, gaze durations for long words were extended similarly for high-and low-frequency words. This suggested that for long words children used partial word representations and encoded multiple sublexical units rather than single whole words. Piecemeal word representation underpinned copying longer words in children, but reliance on partial word representations was not shown in adult readers.

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during scanning of simple dot stimuli

Vision Research, 2010

We examined the influence of a variety of visual factors on binocular coordination during saccadi... more We examined the influence of a variety of visual factors on binocular coordination during saccadic orienting. Some experimental conditions placed similar demands on the oculomotor system as those that occur during reading, but in the absence of linguistic processing. We examined whether saccade target extent, preceding saccade magnitude, preceding saccade direction, and parafoveal availability of saccade target influenced fixation disparity. Disparities similar in magnitude and frequency to those obtained in previous binocular reading experiments occurred. Saccade magnitude had a robust influence upon fixation disparities. The results are very similar to those obtained in investigations of binocular coordination during reading, and indicate that similar patterns occur during reading-like eye scanning behaviour, in the absence of linguistic processing.

Research paper thumbnail of The influence of word shading and word length on eye movements during reading

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks

Psychological Bulletin, 2008

The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading an... more The goal of this review is to evaluate the literature on binocular coordination during reading and non-reading tasks in adult, child, and dyslexic populations. The review begins with a description of the basic characteristics of eye movements during reading. Then, reading and non-reading studies investigating binocular coordination are evaluated. Areas of future research in the field are identified and discussed. Finally, some general conclusions are made regarding binocular coordination. The review demonstrates that findings from traditionally independent areas of research are largely consistent and complementary. Throughout the review, theoretical and methodological commonalities are identified and clarified in order to advance current understanding of this fundamental aspect of human visual processing.

Research paper thumbnail of Reading Text Increases Binocular Disparity in Dyslexic Children

PLoS ONE, 2011

Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite bei... more Children with developmental dyslexia show reading impairment compared to their peers, despite being matched on IQ, socio-economic background, and educational opportunities. The neurological and cognitive basis of dyslexia remains a highly debated topic. Proponents of the magnocellular theory, which postulates abnormalities in the M-stream of the visual pathway cause developmental dyslexia, claim that children with dyslexia have deficient binocular coordination, and this is the underlying cause of developmental dyslexia. We measured binocular coordination during reading and a non-linguistic scanning task in three participant groups: adults, typically developing children, and children with dyslexia. A significant increase in fixation disparity was observed for dyslexic children solely when reading. Our study casts serious doubts on the claims of the magnocellular theory. The exclusivity of increased fixation disparity in dyslexics during reading might be a result of the allocation of inadequate attentional and/or cognitive resources to the reading process, or suboptimal linguistic processing per se.

Research paper thumbnail of The influence of Experience upon Threat Assessment and Visual Search in Complex Scenes

Research paper thumbnail of Binocular coordination: Reading stereoscopic sentences in depth

Journal of Vision, 2010

The present study employs a stereoscopic manipulation to present sentences in three dimensions to... more The present study employs a stereoscopic manipulation to present sentences in three dimensions to subjects as they read for comprehension. Subjects read sentences with (a) no depth cues, (b) a monocular depth cue that implied the sentence loomed out of the screen (i.e., increasing retinal size), (c) congruent monocular and binocular (retinal disparity) depth cues (i.e., both implied the sentence loomed out of the screen) and (d) incongruent monocular and binocular depth cues (i.e., the monocular cue implied the sentence loomed out of the screen and the binocular cue implied it receded behind the screen). Reading efficiency was mostly unaffected, suggesting that reading in three dimensions is similar to reading in two dimensions. Importantly, fixation disparity was driven by retinal disparity; fixations were significantly more crossed as readers progressed through the sentence in the congruent condition and significantly more uncrossed in the incongruent condition. We conclude that disparity depth cues are used on-line to drive binocular coordination during reading.

Research paper thumbnail of Investigating eye movement acquisition and analysis technologies as a causal factor in differential prevalence of crossed and uncrossed fixation disparity during reading and dot scanning

Behavior Research Methods, 2013

Previous studies examining binocular coordination during reading have reported conflicting result... more Previous studies examining binocular coordination during reading have reported conflicting results in terms of the nature of disparity (e.g. ). One potential cause of this inconsistency is differences in acquisition devices and associated analysis technologies. We tested this by directly comparing binocular eye movement recordings made using SR Research EyeLink 1000 and the Fourward Technologies Inc. DPI binocular eyetracking systems. Participants read sentences or scanned horizontal rows of dot strings; for each participant, half the data were recorded with the EyeLink, and the other half with the DPIs. The viewing conditions in both testing laboratories were set to be very similar. Monocular calibrations were used. The majority of fixations recorded using either system were aligned, although data from the EyeLink system showed greater disparity magnitudes. Critically, for unaligned fixations, the data from both systems showed a majority of uncrossed fixations. These results suggest that variability in previous reports of binocular fixation alignment is attributable to the specific viewing conditions associated with a particular experiment (variables such as luminance and viewing distance), rather than acquisition and analysis software and hardware.

Research paper thumbnail of Eye movements affirm: Automatic overt gaze and arrow cueing for typical adults and adults with autism spectrum disorder

Experimental brain …, Jan 1, 2010