edpsy 520: psychology of reading virtual overview and introduction

EDPSY 520: Psychology of Reading

Virtual Overview and Introduction

Welcome This introduction is intended to provide a brief

history of the field and familiarize you with major issues in the psychology of reading

You will also have the opportunity to participate in some classic experiments in the study of reading processes

Click your way through this presentation via the mouse or spacebar; during some of the experiments the computer may take control of the screen pacing

Brief History Psychological research on reading was done

in the early 1900s by E. B. Huey and others

According to Huey (1908): “ . . .to completely analyze what we do when we read would almost be the acme of a psychologist’s achievements, for it would be to describe very many of the most intricate workings of the human mind . . . .”

With the rise of Behaviorism in the early part of the last century, especially within American psychology, the focus shifted to studying behaviors that were more observable than reading (more simple learning and more simple learners)

As cognitive psychology became increasingly dominant during the latter half of the century, reading (and human thinking in general) again became a phenomenon to study

How might we think about reading? Perhaps because of

lasting effects of Behaviorism, many early models of reading still had a very “stimulus-driven,” or “text-driven” feel

In these early models, the assumption was that information in the text is taken in by the reader

Information was seen to flow from the “bottom up”

An Early Bottom-Up Model of Reading, LaBerge & Samuels (1972)

Letters are perceived as visual patterns, and with learning, come to be recognized as letters

Letters are mentally combined and recognized as words

Words are successively recognized as phrases, sentences, etc.

AP + A + T PAT

PAT THE DOG ON THE HEAD.

Not the whole story To test such a text-driven model, you can

now be a subject in an experiment that Edmund Burke Huey performed 100 years ago (with slightly different technology)

When you click the mouse or spacebar, you will see an asterisk ( * ) appear on the screen to orient you. A vertical list of items (letters or words) will then appear under the asterisk

See how many of the items you can read in the time you are given (if possible, read out loud, in a rapid but comfortable pace)

*

*ywusqomkigec

Did you finish the whole list?

Did you have time left over?

Click when you are ready to start the next list.

*

*poolrugsmarksendlistmorepickstabneckyourdicefont

Did you finish the whole list?

Did you have time left over?

Click when you are ready to start the next list.

*

*analysishabitualoccupiedinherentprobablesummoneddevotionremarkedovercomeresoluteelementsconclude

Did you finish the whole list?

If you are like most adult readers, you had time to read all the items on all the lists

Click to advance each screen again

What does this demonstrate?

We do not read letter by letter, building up words from individual letters

The lists contained successively more letters List 1: 1 letter per line List 2: 4 letters per line List 3: 8 letters per line

However, the lists were not displayed for proportionately longer times

All lists were displayed for 8 seconds

You just replicated classic findings You read the short words (4 letter words in

List 2) just as quickly as you read single letters (List 1); both were displayed for only 8 seconds

Even though List 3 contained eight times more letters than List 1, you did not need eight times longer to read it

In studies with more precise timing, people even read short words more quickly than single letters, a phenomenon that has come to be called the “word superiority effect”

Conclusions

Your reading times just demonstrated that not all information flows from the text to the reader; not all information flows from the bottom up.

Alternative models of reading

Theoretical models emphasizing the expectations and prediction abilities of readers have come to be known as “top-down models”

Top-down models

Perhaps the purest of top-down models was offered by Ken Goodman, based on his analysis of readers’ errors as they read aloud, which he called “miscues”

Goodman noted that when they misread a word, good readers are more likely than poor readers to substitute a word that makes sense in the sentence context

Examples of reading errors, or “miscues”

When reading the sentence, “I walked up the sidewalk, across the porch, and knocked on the door of the house”

Good readers may misread the word house as home (but note how the sentence still makes sense)

Poor readers are more likely to misread the word house as horse, or how, or even as a nonsense word like “hoose” (rhyming with choose)

Other evidence of top-down processing

Semantic priming effects We read the word doctor more quickly

following the word nurse, chair more quickly following the word table, compared to when these words follow words with which they share no meaningful relationship

Other evidence of top-down processing

Prior knowledge effects When interpreting sentences containing

ambiguous words, such as “ When Jerry, Mike, and Pat arrived, Karen was sitting in her living room writing some notes” College students majoring in music interpreted

the word notes as musical notes Other students interpreted the words notes as

brief letters or reminders to oneself

Not the whole story either

Of course, top-down processing can’t be the whole story either because we do read, not simply daydream in front of books

The context that drives expectations comes from somewhere

Interactive Models of Reading

Most reading researchers now adopt a theoretical model that includes interaction from both top-down and bottom-up processes

Implications of an Interactive Model

Interactive models are not a simple compromise, not a little of both

Interactive reading processes require complex coordination of multiple sources of information The text on the page Context from previous text Prior knowledge Reading goals

Implications of an Interactive Model

Where do we store all these sources of information?

How do we coordinate multiple information sources, accessing them seemingly simultaneously?

Unlimited Long-term Memory (LTM)

Every kind of knowledge we use as part of reading must be stored in our long-term memory (LTM) Letters Words Word meanings Memory for general story structures Memory for a specific text Prior knowledge of the topic

Limited Short-term Memory (STM)and Attention The amount of information we can hold in

immediate STM at any given time is limited The storage capacity of STM has been

estimated between 5 and 9 (7+2), but there are strategies to increase STM

Still, STM limits generally exist; to convince yourself, try this multiplication problem in your head:1683945

x 6939

Implications of an Interactive Model

During reading, attention can’t be everywhere at once, even in an interactive system

If attention is required to identify individual letters, then less attention is available to devote to recognizing words

If attention is required to recognize words, then less attention is available to devote to building up story context

How do Interactions Work?

The key to getting around limits on attention and STM is to have some processes (such as letter and word recognition) go on automatically

Automaticity is the underlying cause of the word superiority effect you demonstrated for yourself some while back

How do Automatic Processes Work?

With the next few slides you can take part in another classic reading experiment

Click to begin

Name the color of each letter cluster

Read the following clusters from left to right, as though you were reading connected sentences. Remember to name the color of the ink.

Click to begin

Name the color of each letter cluster

Name the color of each letter cluster

XXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX

Did you finish the whole set?

Did you have time left over?

Click when you are ready to start the next set.

Name the color of each letter cluster

Read the following clusters from left to right, as though you were reading connected sentences. Remember to name the color of the ink.

Click to begin

Name the color of each letter cluster

Name the color of each letter cluster

GREEN BLUE RED GREEN GREENRED BLUE BLUE RED BLUEBLUE GREEN RED BLUE REDGREEN RED GREEN BLUE RED

Did you finish the whole set?

If you are like most adult readers, you named the color of ink far more easily in the first set than the second

In the second list, you may have experienced strong interference because you wanted to say aloud the word that you saw, rather than name the color of the ink in which the words were printed

What does this demonstrate?

Your word reading processes are automatic The good news: Automatic processes run

without conscious attention or effort The bad news: Automatic processes are also

hard to “turn off” You just replicated another classic study in

reading research, illustrating the “Stroop effect” (named for the experimenter who first reported it)

Implications for an Interactive Model

If some of the multiple processes we are trying to coordinate are automatic, they can operate without tying up much attention or STM capacity

Thus, automatic lower level (bottom up) process such as letter and word identification can free up limited STM capacity for higher level (top down) processes, such as comprehension, interpretation, etc.

Reading Problems

What are the most common sources of reading problems?

Are less skilled readers poorer at bottom up processes such as word identification?

Or, are less skilled readers necessarily poorer at using context (as Goodman suggested)?

Another classic experiment in reading

Perfetti & Roth examined the use of context by skilled and less skilled readers in Grade 4

Children listened to short stories and were timed as they read aloud just the final word

Thus, the beginning of each story provided context for the final word, which was the only word that children had to read

However, the predictive quality of the context provided by the story varied

Perfetti and Roth’s study

Some contexts were highly predictable Children heard:

The garbage men had loaded as much as they could onto the truck. They would have to drop off a load at the garbage _________.

Children read: dump

Perfetti and Roth’s study

Some contexts were less predictable Children heard:

Albert didn’t have the money he needed to buy the part to fix his car. Luckily he found the part he wanted at the _________.

Children read: dump

Perfetti and Roth’s study

Some contexts were anomalous (misleading) Children heard:

Phil couldn’t decide whether to go to the movies or to the party. Both sounded like lots of fun, but he finally decided to go to the _________.

Children read: dump

How do skilled readers use context?

Perfetti & Roth measured in milliseconds how long children in the two groups needed to read aloud the final word of each story

If skilled readers use context to help identify words, what do you predict will happen to their reading times as they go from highly predictable to less predictable contexts?

What about as they go to anomalous contexts? Click to see their actual results

Time to Read Final Word Aloud

500

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Skilled 4th grade readers

High Less predictable Anomalous

Predictability of Context

What do these results tell us?

Skilled readers use context Skilled readers read words fastest when the

context was highly predictive When contexts were less predictive or

anomalous, skilled readers took almost 100 milliseconds longer to read the same word

How do less-skilled readers use context?

If less skilled readers do not use context to help identify words, what do you predict will happen to their reading times as they go from highly predictable to less predictable contexts?

What about as they go to anomalous contexts?

Click to see their actual results

Time to Read Word Aloud

500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950

1000

Skilled 4th grade readers

High Less predictable Anomalous

Predictability of Context

Time to Read Word Aloud

500

550

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950

1000

Skilled 4th grade readers

Less skilled 4th grade readers

High Less predictable Anomalous

Predictability of Context

What do these results tell us?

Less skilled readers use context too! Less skilled readers read words fastest when

the context was highly predictive When contexts were less predictive they took

almost 150 milliseconds longer to read the same word

When contexts were anomalous, they took another 150 milliseconds longer to read the same word

Who uses context more?

Less skilled readers were even more sensitive to context than skilled readers

The slope of the less skilled readers’ reading times was steeper as context became less predictive

Less skilled readers were especially hesitant to read a word when it violated the context

Who uses context more?

This does not mean that skilled readers don’t use context

In all but the most predictable contexts, skilled readers identify words so fast that they don’t need to use context

Who uses context more?

How do these results fit with Goodman’s observations about poor readers not using context as they read?

In Perfetti and Roth’s study, the less skilled readers did not have to read the context; they got it “for free” by listening

The problem for less skilled readers is keeping context in mind when they have to read it for themselves

Implications of an Interactive Model

During reading, attention can’t be everywhere at once, even in an interactive system

If less skilled readers’ attention is required to identify individual words, then less attention is available to devote to building up story context

Less skilled readers are in a double bind; they rely on context more than skilled readers, but can’t maintain it while reading

The story is more complicated

Reading is a complex interaction between bottom up and top down processes

The experiments you have reviewed here do not tell the complete story

Not all readers have difficulties for exactly the same reasons

Readers differ in terms of the processing skill and the knowledge they bring to reading

More to come

Much of our work for the rest of the term will examine: On what knowledge does reading build How do knowledge and processes interact How do skilled and less skilled readers differ

See you at our first meeting