In Chapter II we defined reading as "looking at script in order to language." In this section we will elaborate upon reading as a special kind of looking activity.
One factor characterizing reading as a special form of looking is that of the course of eye movements. The reader must learn to make short, successive fixations in reading. Furthermore, he is required to program the eye movements into a specific fixation order (ie., in English, progressing from left to right in a descending fashion). This represents an unaccustomed task for the visual-motor system; it must be specifically conditioned to function in such a unique manner.
In looking, attention is given to the information in visual SIS and merged with information from long-term memory to produce a recognition or other type of comprehension response. However, as pointed out earlier, the attention process includes both a focus and a margin of attention. The visual information in SIS consists of information picked up by both the fovea and the periphery of the eye. The foveal information forms the information in SIS processed by focal attention, while the peripheral information makes up the margin of attention.
A substantial body of research (e.g., Hubel and Wiesel, 1965; Johnson, 1965, Gould, 1967; Mackworth and Morandi, 1967; Yarbus, 1967; Hochberg, 1970a; Hochberg and Brooks, 1970) has demonstrated that the peripheral retinal information may be used to enable the looker to differentiate between useful and useless information, it may function in the preattentive processing and editing of redundant stimuli, and it may indicate the locus of the next fixation (ie., it may serve to direct ballistic eye movements whose termination points are predetermined prior to their onset).