Driving Factors in the Development of Eye Movement Patterns in Chinese Reading: The Roles of Linguistic Ability and Oculomotor Maturation.

Meihua Guo, Nina Liu, Jingen Wu, Chengchieh Li, Guoli Yan

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Article in Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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Authors and funding

5 authors.

Meihua GuoFaculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China.

Nina LiuFaculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China.

Jingen WuFaculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China.

Chengchieh LiSchool of Education and Psychology, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou 363000, China.

Guoli YanFaculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin 300387, China.

Funding

The Chinese Ministry of Education Major Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities 22JJD190012

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The mechanisms driving the development of eye movement patterns is an unresolved debate in children during reading, with three competing hypotheses: the oculomotor-tuning hypothesis, the linguistic-proficiency hypothesis, and the combined hypothesis that incorporates both. This study examined eye movement patterns in 215 Chinese children from first to fifth grade using sentence-reading tasks. Oculomotor maturation was measured through saccade tasks, and linguistic abilities were assessed using Chinese character recognition and vocabulary knowledge tests. Path analysis explored how these factors predict temporal and spatial eye movement measures. Results indicated that temporal measures were primarily driven by linguistic abilities, supporting the linguistic-proficiency hypothesis. Spatial measures, however, were influenced by both linguistic abilities and oculomotor maturation, supporting the combined hypothesis. These findings diverge from predictions of the E-Z Reader model in alphabetic scripts, likely due to the unique visual complexity of Chinese characters.

Indexed as

eye movement patternslinguistic abilitiesoculomotor maturationreading development

Identifiers

PMID40282048

DOI10.3390/bs15040426

PMCPMC12024013

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