Millar S
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK.
Perception. 1987;16(4):521-36. doi: 10.1068/p160521.
Hypotheses that fluent braille depends (i) on coding letters by global outline shape for all task and speed levels, or (ii) on lateral dot-gap density scanning in fast reading for meaning were tested with three groups of fluent braillists who differed in reading speeds. In experiment 1, 90 degrees-rotated (near to far) texts under vertical and horizontal finger orientation were used. Hypothesis (i) was not supported. Finger orientation interacted significantly with Speed and Task. Vertical finger orientation, which disrupts lateral scanning, slowed reading for comprehension more than for letter search, and differentially more for faster readers. Horizontal finger orientation, which instead disrupts the familiar finger-body relation, did not have differential effects. The findings support hypothesis (ii). In experiment 2, normal texts and texts containing a degraded dot in some letters were used. These are felt in searching for individual letter patterns, but would disrupt lateral scanning of expected dot-gap density patterns in reading for meaning. The results supported the predictions from hypothesis (ii), that degraded texts slow reading for meaning significantly more than for letter search, and more in the case of faster readers than for the slowest group. Findings were not consistent with hypothesis (i), which predicts that text degradation affects tasks equally, and affects the slowest rather than the fastest readers. The results suggest that perceptual coding in reading differs with task demands and speed.
对于流畅阅读盲文，有两种假说：（i）在所有任务和速度水平下，通过整体轮廓形状对字母进行编码；（ii）在快速阅读以理解文意时，通过横向点间隙密度扫描。我们对三组阅读速度不同的熟练盲文阅读者进行了测试，以验证这两种假说。在实验1中，使用了在垂直和水平手指方向下90度旋转（从近到远）的文本。假说（i）未得到支持。手指方向与速度和任务存在显著交互作用。垂直手指方向会干扰横向扫描，相比于字母搜索任务，它会使理解性阅读的速度减慢更多，对于阅读速度较快的人影响更大。而水平手指方向则相反，它会干扰熟悉的手指与身体的关系，但没有差异效应。这些发现支持了假说（ii）。在实验2中，使用了正常文本和一些字母中包含退化点的文本。在搜索单个字母模式时能感觉到这些退化点，但在阅读以理解文意时会干扰预期的点间隙密度模式的横向扫描。结果支持了假说（ii）的预测，即退化文本会使理解性阅读的速度减慢程度显著超过字母搜索任务，并且对于阅读速度较快的人影响更大，而对最慢的一组影响相对较小。研究结果与假说（i）不一致，假说（i）预测文本退化对各项任务的影响是相同的，并且对最慢的阅读者影响更大，而不是最快的阅读者。结果表明，阅读中的感知编码会因任务需求和速度的不同而有所差异。
