Journal
VISION RESEARCH
Volume 47, Issue 20, Pages 2575-2584Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2007.05.017
Keywords
reading; space; fixation; saccade; Japanese
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The present study investigated the role of interword spacing in a naturally unspaced language, Japanese. Eye movements were registered of native Japanese readers reading pure Hiragana (syllabic) and mixed Kanji-Hiragana (ideographic and syllabic) text in spaced and unspaced conditions. Interword spacing facilitated both word identification and eye guidance when reading syllabic script, but not when the script contained ideographic characters. We conclude that in reading Hiragana interword spacing serves as an effective segmentation cue. In contrast, spacing information in mixed Kanji-Hiragana text is redundant, since the visually salient Kanji characters serve as effective segmentation cues by themselves. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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