Eye-movement training as a means of improving reading ability.

In his pioneer study of eye-movements in reading, Dearborn (1) noted that the fixations of good readers show more line-to-line consistency than those of poor readers. This led him to posit the concept of 'l short lived motor habits" of the eye in reading. He further stated that the ability to acquire this "short-lived motor habit" was an important fac tor in reading ability. A survey of the literature on the topic of eye movement habit (7) reveals several attempts by followers of Dearborn to set up eye-movement habits, through training exercises, and thus im prove reading speed. All of these trials have apparently been rewarded with success as evidenced by increased reading speed. Conclusions are then drawn that the increased speed of reading followed causally from the establishment of more line-to-line regularity of fixation pauses, i. e. more habit. Unfortunately, with the exception of the study by Robinson (6) none of these studies presents eye-movement data, and even this one fails to analyze in terms of habit itself. Moreover, none of them, again except ing Robinson, offers comparative data from groups given other types of training or no training at all. But while Robinson's monograph rem edies some of these defects, it has others itself. In the first place, his training involved a number of irrevelant and confusing factors (7, 12). Moreover, since his training aimed at reducing the number of fixation pauses per line as well as making them more regular, he is not justified in drawing conclusions concerning the Dearborn habit concept which in volves only the regularity feature. The present brief experiment is aimed at comparing the results of training eye-movements themselves with training via mere motivated reading. PROCEDURE