II. Motor and Perceptual Skill in “Reading” Material Whose Meaning is Unimportant
PART I of this report described a group of college students who all had similar general reading ability. Within this group were some who could increase speed easily when reading simple prose ("flexible" readers) and others who could not ("inflexible" readers). The flex ible readers differed significantly from the in flexible in their characteristic eye-movement patterns, particularly in fixation spanandrate. Since the prose was very easy to understand, it should have been simple for all these stude nts to read it quickly. Therefore the wide differ ences which appeared wer o probably not re lated to factors which make for easy understand ing: familiarity, vocabulary, general back ground. Further, all the students had recently been tested by refractionists who found their apparatus satisfactory. Finally, there was no indication that confusion, tension, or unfamil iarity affected the reading measures. In order to find out what was responsible for the wide variation in rate increase, the same students were put in quasi-reading situations which elim inated or minimized concern for meaning, con secutive thought, or judgment. They would then use their eyes as they usually do in reading, and perceptual-motor habits would persist with out any complicating demand for understanding meaning. Would the two groups of readers still show significantly different behavior ?