Eye fixation patterns of 21 dyslexic and 21 younger, nondyslexic readers were compared when they read aloud 2 texts. The study examined whether word-frequency and word-length effects previously found for skilled adult readers would generalize equally to younger dyslexic and nondyslexic readers. Significantly longer gaze durations and reinspection times were found for low-frequency and long words than for high-frequency and short words. The effects also showed up in the number of fixations on the target words. The effects did not differ significantly for the 2 experimental groups. The results run counter to the oculomotor dysfunction hypothesis of dyslexia. Instead, they support the view that both dyslexic and nondyslexic readers' eye fixation patterns reflect their difficulties in successfully identifying words in a text. Eye behavior during reading has interested psychologists since the early days of experimental psychology (see Venezky, 1993) . As Rayner (1978) pointed out, psychologists are now in a new era of eye movement research, which has been predominantly influenced by cognitive psychology. Thus, during the last two decades there has been an increased interest in the study of eye movements in reading from the standpoint that readers' eye movement patterns reflect ongoing cognitive processes in a moment-to-moment fashion. This approach has been very fruitful, and there is now ample evidence that eye fixation patterns indeed reflect several perceptual and language processes that are carried out during reading (for a review, see Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989) . Quite apart, and independent, from this cognitive approach to eye movements in nondyslexic readers, there has been an enduring interest in research on reading disabled or dyslexic children in eye behavior per se, not as an index of cognitive processing. It is somewhat surprising that the cognitive and dyslexia lines of research have not really met each other. Cognitive psychologists using eye movements to study perceptual and language factors in reading have primarily focused on skilled reading, and very few studies have been conducted on developmental aspects of reading ability. However, research-
Hyönä et al. REF studies the effect of word length and word frequency in relation with eye fixation patterns.
Eye Fixation Patterns Among Dyslexic and Normal Readers: Effects of Word Length and Word Frequency
Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition
Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition
Psychology Medicine