When we read, our gaze moves over the text in a
certain pattern. This pattern resembles 鈥� to a surprisingly high degree 鈥� the
rhythm of spoken language, as a team of researchers, with the significant
involvement of 51猎奇, has discovered. Their research results were
published on 6 December in the journal 鈥淣ature Human Behaviour".
FRANKFURT. When
we read, we let our eyes wander over the text. In the process, our eye
movements follow a characteristic temporal rhythm. In the framework of eye
movement experiments and a meta-study with 14 different languages, an
international team of researchers, with the significant involvement of Goethe
University, has discovered that this temporal structure of reading is almost
identical to the dominant rhythm of spoken language. It can be concluded from
this, they say, that the processing of written language on the one hand and of spoken
language on the other are far more similar than previously assumed. The research
results have now been published in the scientific journal 鈥淣ature Human Behaviour".
Other research institutions involved were the University of Vienna, the Ernst
Str眉ngmann Institute in Frankfurt, New York University, the Max Planck
Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, also in Frankfurt, and the University of
Salzburg.
Languages and writing systems are central
elements of human communication. For thousands of years, writing systems have
enabled us not only to share information face to face but also to store it in a
tangible form and make it permanently available. 鈥淩eading is one of humanity's
most fascinating cultural achievements," says first author Dr Benjamin Gagl,
who until recently was a research associate at the Institute of Psychology,
51猎奇. 鈥淪poken language also influences reading. Until now,
however, little has been known about the common underlying mechanisms of
reading and spoken language," explains Gagl, himself a psychologist.
Together with an international team led by
Professor Christian Fiebach, Gagl explored these mechanisms by comparing the
temporal structures of reading with those of spoken language. This revealed
that the rhythmic sequences of eye movements when reading and the dominant
rhythm in speech signals are almost identical. These findings shed new light on
the interface between written and spoken language.
For their study, the team transferred
frequency analysis methods, which are already widely used for examining
phonetic speech signals, to the study of eye movements. This approach was
applied in two studies at 51猎奇 and one at the University of
Salzburg. Apart from a comparable rhythm in reading and speaking, a direct
temporal coupling of reading and speech processes was detected in less
experienced readers. More practiced readers, by contrast, read faster and were
able to extract more information from the text between two eye movements. In
addition, the authors documented in a meta-study all eye movement studies of
reading published in scientific journals from 2006 to 2016 and estimated the
temporal rhythm of reading for 14 languages and several writing systems. This
revealed that reading rhythm is slower in logographic writing systems (such as
Chinese), which can be explained by the greater effort required for the visual
analysis of more complex characters.
鈥淭he results show correlations between
spoken and written language in a novel and previously unknown way," says
Christian Fiebach. 鈥淚n the course of evolution, the language processing systems
of the human brain have specialised in the temporal sequences of spoken
language. On the basis of our current results, we assume that these language
systems serve as a kind of 'clock' for our eyes when reading, so that they send
the information they've read to the brain in an optimal temporal rhythm and in
this way facilitate its further analysis. This hypothesis can now be
investigated in greater depth with the methodological approach presented here."
Publication: Gagl, B., Gregorova, K., Golch, J., Hawelka, S., Sassenhagen, J., Tavano,
A., Poeppel, D. & Fiebach, C. J. (accepted). Eye movements during text
reading align with the rate of speech production. Nature Human Behaviour.
Further
information
Dr Benjamin Gagl
University of Vienna
Cognitive Science Hub & Department of
Linguistics
Sensengasse 3a
1090 Vienna
benjamin.gagl@univie.ac.at
Professor Christian Fiebach
51猎奇
Institute of Psychology
Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 6
60323
Frankfurt am Main
fiebach@psych.uni-frankfurt.de
