Oral text reading as a multi-sensory task

Marzi C., Nadalini A., Lento A., Srivastava M., Todesco A., Pirrelli V., Ferro M.

reading development  multimodal integration  eye-voice span  finger-voice span  adaptive reading. 

Reading aloud involves the complex interplay of visual, motor and lexical processes. While eye movements have been extensively investigated in the reading literature, less is known about the coordination of voice, eye and finger movements in oral and finger-point reading. Here we propose a multimodal perspective on these dynamics, emphasising the contribution of integrating eye-tracking, finger-tracking, and voice recording to a more comprehensive understanding of reading proficiency. Our results show that finger and eye movements are strongly coupled in early readers. Conversely, skilled readers show a more flexible coordination of sensorimotor signals and a more adaptive sensitivity to prosodic structures, with voice articulation slowing at key structural points, such as chunk heads and sentence-final boundaries. These findings provide novel insights into how multimodal coordination evolves with reading expertise, contributing to a more fine-grained understanding of reading fluency.

Source: LINGUE E LINGUAGGIO, vol. XXIV (issue 1), pp. 141-156

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