Huang Chen, Lorusso Maria Luisa, Luo Zheng, Zhao Jing
Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China.
Unit of Neuropsychology of Developmental Disorders, Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2019 Nov 6;10:2450. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02450. eCollection 2019.
It has been suggested that there is a close relationship between visual attention span (VAS) and fluent reading. This relation may be modulated by participants' age, and exhibits various patterns in different reading modes (i.e., oral vs. silent reading) and different reading levels (e.g., sentence vs. character/word levels). Moreover, the modulation effects from the above factors might be more remarkable in the framework of languages with a deep orthography. Therefore, the present study investigated the developmental pattern of the relationship between VAS skills and reading fluency in Chinese, a language with particularly deep orthography, by recruiting 292 participants from primary schools, middle schools, and universities. Two tests were utilized to assess fluent reading skills at the single-character and sentence levels with oral and silent reading modes. A visual 1-back task was adopted to reflect VAS capacity with non-verbal stimuli and no verbal response. Results showed that the VAS capacity of low-grade primary school students could significantly account for the variance in single-character reading fluency in the oral mode and that it was a significant predictor of sentence reading fluency in the oral mode among high-grade primary school students. VAS abilities of middle school students allowed a unique and stable prediction of their silent sentence reading. With increasing reading ability, VAS skills of adults showed significant and similar predictive power for estimating the variations in fluent sentence reading in both silent and oral modes. These results revealed developmental changes in the contribution of VAS to fluent reading in Chinese, and provided evidence unveiling whether the underlying mechanisms of oral and silent reading were shared or different.
有人认为，视觉注意广度（VAS）与流畅阅读之间存在密切关系。这种关系可能会受到参与者年龄的调节，并且在不同的阅读模式（即朗读与默读）和不同的阅读水平（例如句子水平与字/词水平）中呈现出不同的模式。此外，在正字法较复杂的语言框架下，上述因素的调节作用可能更为显著。因此，本研究通过招募292名来自小学、中学和大学的参与者，调查了汉语（一种正字法特别复杂的语言）中VAS技能与阅读流畅性之间关系的发展模式。使用两项测试来评估朗读和默读模式下单字和句子水平的流畅阅读技能。采用视觉1-回溯任务来反映非语言刺激且无语言反应情况下的VAS能力。结果表明，低年级小学生的VAS能力能够显著解释朗读模式下单字阅读流畅性的差异，并且它是高年级小学生朗读模式下句子阅读流畅性的显著预测指标。中学生的VAS能力对其默读句子阅读具有独特且稳定的预测作用。随着阅读能力的提高，成年人的VAS技能在估计默读和朗读模式下流畅句子阅读的差异方面表现出显著且相似的预测能力。这些结果揭示了VAS对汉语流畅阅读贡献的发展变化，并为揭示朗读和默读的潜在机制是相同还是不同提供了证据。
