Eye Tracking Exploring How You Perceive Written Words

You may not realize it, but when you read, you don’t actually look at every single letter in every word. The mind only needs certain key elements to be present in order to comprehend the message, similar to a connect-the-dots picture. There are a few theories as to what these key elements are, and research is being done to identify exactly how the mind puts together the pieces. Eye tracking devices have been used to study the behavior of the eyes as reading occurs since this could answer some of the questions about how the mind processes letter combinations to create words and then sentences.

One of the theories is that the letter order within the word doesn’t matter; only the first and last letters of a word need to be present. For example, eevn tohguh teh ltteres in tihs snetecne aer jmlubed, yuo cna pobralby udtnetsnad it. A recent article addresses the myth that your brain recognizes word shape, making words written in all CAPs instead of “mixed case” harder to read. The author talks about modern research suggesting that your brain recognizes letter combinations and sequences that are familiar and uses that information to recognize the word. This has to do with how your eyes move as you read. It may feel like you are reading line by line in a smooth sweeping motion; however, eye-tracking research has shown that this is not the case. Your eyes actually make quick jumping movements called saccades followed by brief fixations, which means you really only see the part of the sentence you fixate on in between saccades. Using your peripheral vision, your brain puts together the surrounding letter combinations it recognizes to create a comprehendible sequence, literally connecting the dots.

If this is the case, you have to wonder why correct spelling is so important. I admit that my computer’s Spell Checker is my best friend, but waht’s teh bgi dael, yuo konw waht I’m syanig, rhgit?

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