WHO:	Hyojung Seo , Department of Psychology, Seoul National University
TOPIC:	Eye-head coordination during reading horizontally and vertically arranged Korean texts
ABSTRACT:	We quantitatively compared parameters of eye and head coordination during reading horizontally and vertically arranged Korean texts. Reading was faster for horizontally arranged than for vertically arranged texts by 24%, primarily due to larger gaze amplitude for horizontal reading, and thus smaller numbers of saccades and fixations. The higher velocity of gaze saccades for given amplitudes in horizontal than vertical reading also contributed to the difference in reading speed. The horizontal bias in reading is at least partly due to the oculomotor system, because the higher velocity for given amplitude of horizontal saccade was also observed in a control experiment devoid of lexical load, in which a sequentially stepping laser target was tracked. The analysis of instantaneous phase of eye and head movements with a metric derived by the Hilbert transform suggests that eye and head coupling is stronger for vertical than for horizontal direction in both reading and laser-tracking tasks. These results indicate that the coupling strength between eye and head movements is variable depending on the direction of gaze shift.
WHEN:	8/5/2003 12:00:00 PM
WHERE:	Meliora 269

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