The way we read
David Crystal’s book, How Language Works, includes an illuminating chapter on what exactly our eyes are doing when we read. Here’s a summary:
Both eyes work together as they search for an object, in quick jerky movements known as saccades. Between saccades are fixations, or periods of relative stability.
When we read, our eyes are alternating between saccades and fixations, taking in words not as linear lines of print but as larger visual units.
This “visual pattern of graphic features” is then transmitted to the retina; after that an optic nerves sends the pattern along to our brain for interpretation.
But the process of understanding what we read is a little more complicated, and there are a few different theories as to how we translate text into complete words with meanings. One of these theories is that we read by ear, or phonic mediation. This view argues that the process of reading individual words is indeed linear: letter-by-letter, our brain gathers the phonological sounds one at a time until a whole word, recognized by sound, is understood.
The other method claims that the “phonological bridge” is not necessary in any situation where the text is not read aloud. Instead, it emphasizes the partnership between graphology and semantics — that words are taken in by the brain as whole units, or read by eye. This process involves our peripheral vision to steer us towards the most important part of the page, leaving us to “guess” the significance of the leftover words to form a comprehensive understanding of the text as a whole.
