Development of perceptual and cognitive strategies for differentiating graphemes.

Abstract

Measured the eye movements of 18 male and 18 female kindergartners, 1st graders, and 3rd graders during the differentiation of matched and unmatched letter pairs. Unmatched pairs differed in degree of confusability. Both 1st and 3rd graders required fewer fixations, less fixation time, and fewer cross comparisons per pair than kindergartners. In addition to less quantity, the visual fixation patterns of 1st and 3rd graders were more attuned, qualitatively, to informative features of letters than those of kindergartners. Despite the relatively low overall utilization of distinctive features in differentiating letter pairs, fixations of 1st and 3rd graders showed a definite bias toward areas containing distinctive-feature information when compared to those of kindergartners. The perceptual efficiency of 1st and 3rd graders is attributed to either more effective cognitive strategies or greater use of peripheral viewing resulting in the expansion of the useful visual field. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)