Collaborative Research: The role of perceptual and word identification spans in reading efficiency: Evidence from deaf and hearing adults

在现代社会中，能够有效地阅读是成功的关键。识字率低的人口（例如，有阅读障碍的人和失聪的人）遭受一些负面后果，包括学业和就业机会差，这可能导致经济向上流动性减少，获得公共信息的机会有限，这可能导致死亡率和健康风险增加，以及公民参与减少，这可能导致孤立感和抑郁感增加。为了提高这些人群的识字率，研究人员首先必须了解成功阅读背后的机制，以便干预措施有针对性。几十年来的识字研究和教学都集中在语言能力（特别是词汇和发音能力）的重要性上，而在很大程度上忽视了注意力的作用，非中心（周边）视觉对文本的感知，以及这些过程的协调，以支持有效的阅读。研究者认为，从文本中获得的视觉和语言信息在周边视觉中都对阅读效率起着重要作用，但它们的作用方式不同。例如，患有阅读障碍的个体在阅读文本时表现出异常的眼球运动行为，但在简单的视觉元素（如点）之间移动眼球时则不会。这表明，阅读困难的产生不是因为需要精确地移动眼睛，而是因为需要对文本进行语言处理。此外，一些聋人比听力正常的人更有效率的读者，这表明他们的阅读行为可能会被听觉剥夺（这可能会增强视觉处理能力）或美国手语（ASL）的经验增强，这可能会增强语言处理能力。然而，很少有人知道聋人阅读能力与他们独特的视觉或语言体验的联系程度。通过澄清这些机制，该项目有可能通过增加对手语在聋人认知发展和学业成功中的作用的科学理解，为聋人教育政策提供信息。通过扩展，研究人员的工作也将有助于通过揭示视觉和语言处理对阅读成功的独特贡献来理解阅读障碍，这些贡献被认为是阅读障碍的潜在缺陷。本项目调查了非语言视觉处理和单词识别能力对听力和聋人阅读成功的独特贡献。研究人员使用视情况眼动跟踪阅读范例来收集阅读效率测量（例如，阅读率和细粒度的眼动跟踪指标），并进行回归分析，以调查什么能力预测阅读熟练度的这些方面。为了评估阅读能力的预测因素，研究人员收集了一般认知和语言能力的测量结果（例如，英语文本理解，英语拼写能力，英语词汇，非语言智商和ASL理解），以及进行实验，评估每个人在周边视觉中处理各种类型信息的能力（例如，简单的视觉特征、英语单词、ASL符号），并使眼球运动到周边位置。通过同时考虑视觉和语言处理能力，并通过比较聋人和阅读匹配的听力成年人的阅读行为，研究人员能够确定语言和/或感官体验如何影响阅读过程。 该项目由感知、行动和认知计划资助，并由发现研究preK-12计划（DRK-12）和美国复苏计划（阿普）共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Being able to read efficiently is critical to success in modern society. Populations with low literacy rates (e.g., individuals with dyslexia and deaf individuals) suffer from a number of negative outcomes, including poor academic and employment opportunities which can lead to reduced upward economic mobility, limited access to public information which can lead to increased fatality and health risks, as well as reduced civic engagement which can lead to increased feelings of isolation and depression. In order to improve literacy rates in these populations, researchers first must understand the mechanisms underlying successful reading so that interventions will be appropriately targeted. Decades of literacy research and instruction have focused on the importance of language abilities (particularly vocabulary and the ability to sound out words) while largely ignoring the role of attention, perception of text in non-central (peripheral) vision, and the coordination of these processes to support efficient reading. The investigators propose that visual and linguistic information obtained from the text in peripheral vision both play an important role in reading efficiency, but that they do so in different ways. For example, individuals with dyslexia exhibit abnormal eye movement behavior when reading text, but not when moving their eyes between simple visual elements such as dots. This suggests that reading difficulties arise less from needing to move the eyes precisely than from the requirement to process text linguistically. Moreover, some deaf individuals are more efficient readers than their hearing counterparts, suggesting that their reading behavior may be augmented by either auditory deprivation (which may enhance visual processing abilities) or experience with American Sign Language (ASL; which may enhance linguistic processing abilities). However, little is known about the degree to which deaf readers’ abilities are linked to their unique visual or linguistic experiences. By clarifying these mechanisms, this project has the potential to inform deaf education policy by increasing scientific understanding of the role of sign language in the cognitive development and academic success of deaf individuals. By extension, the investigators’ work will also be useful for understanding dyslexia by revealing the distinct contributions of visual and linguistic processing to reading success that have been implicated as potential deficits that underlie dyslexia.This project investigates the distinct contributions of non-linguistic visual processing and word recognition abilities to reading success in both hearing and deaf adults. The investigators use gaze-contingent eye tracking reading paradigms to gather reading efficiency measures (e.g., reading rate, and fine-grained eye tracking metrics) at the participant level and conduct regression analyses to investigate what abilities predict these aspects of reading proficiency. To assess the predictors of reading ability, the investigators collect measures of general cognitive and linguistic abilities (e.g., English text comprehension, English spelling ability, English vocabulary, non-verbal IQ, and ASL comprehension), as well as conduct experiments that assess each individual’s ability to process various types of information in peripheral vision (e.g., simple visual features, English words, ASL signs), and to make eye movements to peripheral locations. By accounting for both visual and linguistic processing abilities simultaneously, and by comparing reading behavior in deaf signers and reading-matched hearing adults, the investigators are able to identify how language and/or sensory experiences impact reading processes. This project is funded by the Perception, Action, and Cognition Program with co-funding from the Discovery Research preK-12 Program (DRK-12) and from the American Recovery Plan (ARP).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.