Research over the past decade into the psychophysics of reading has demonstrated that information extracted from text falling on the parafoveal and peripheral regions of the retina is used by the human visual system to significantly increase reading speed. Recent results provide evidence that knowledge of word frequency is brought to bear in processing parafoveal data. There is other psychological evidence indicating the type of large-scale features used by the visual system to recognize isolated characters in parafoveal vision. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a system able to recognize the most commonly occurring english words and suffixes from parafoveally available information by employing knowledge of their letter sequences and of large-scale features of lower-case characters. The Marr-Hildreth theory of edge detection provides a description of the information computed by the earliest stages of visual processing from parafoveal words. Large-scale features extracted from this description, while relatively invariant with respect to noise and font changes, are insufficient to uniquely identify most characters but are used to place each into one of several classes of similar characters. The sequence of these 'confusion classes' is found to place a strong constraint on word identity—of the 1000 most common words comprising the system's vocabulary, representing 70% of the volume of the Brown Corpus of printed English, 92% have mutually unique confusion class sequences. Word recognition is achieved by using the confusion class sequence as a key into the vocabulary, retrieving the word or words having the same sequence. Suffixes are recognized in a similar way. Results are presented demonstrating the system's ability to identify words and suffixes in text images over a range of simulated parafoveal eccentricities and in two different fonts, one with serifs and one without. Smoothing by the Marr-Hildreth operator, the simplicity and scale of the features, the size of the character classes, and the context provided by the character sequence give the system a degree of robustness. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph.D)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Psychology, 1978. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Vita. / Bibliography: leaves 112-115. / by Rhonda B. Friedman. / Ph.D

This Study examines the grades of students using study skill methods and those who do not. The experiment consists of giving the treatment group the opportunity to use well- known study techniques. The Control group could only read the material. Both groups were given ten minutes to read a pre-selected text. The text consisted of an 1,807 word lesson on the, "Technical Training Management System." Each group was given five minutes to take a twenty item quiz. Fifty-five students in the control group were limited to only reading the material. Fifty-six students in the treatment group could choose between highlighting, note-taking, and underlining. The results of the test scores were compared using a t - test for dependent samples. One week later, the same students in each group were re-tested, using the same quiz they had taken earlier. Students had five minutes to review study material. Study material for the treatment group included the same material they had annotated earlier. The Results from each group wascompared. Efforts were made to avoid potential flaws in previous studies, thereby producing more viable results. Results of this study indicate there is no significant difference between the grades of students who use the aforementioned forms of text annotation and those who do not.

The major purpose of the research was to determine whether the curiosity levels of children would be increased and whether gains would be made in children's reading comprehension when selected questioning procedures were used. The study was confined to teacher-directed instructional situations where children were engaged in reading acts. More specifically, answers were sought to the following questions: 1. Does the use of selected questioning procedures produce a significant increase in curiosity over the use of regular classroom procedures? 2. Does the use of selected questioning procedures produce a significant gain in reading comprehension over the use of regular classroom procedures?

by Wong Mui Fong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-48). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.2 / TABLE OF CONTENT --- p.3 / LIST OF TABLES --- p.4 / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.5 / ABSTRACT --- p.6 / ABSTRACT (CHI) --- p.7 / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- PROCESSING OF SPEECH IN CHINESE CHILDREN WITH DIFFERENT READING ABILITIES: AN FMRI STUDY --- p.8 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- METHOD --- p.18 / Participants --- p.18 / Imaging Technique --- p.18 / Other Apparatus --- p.18 / Procedure --- p.19 / Testing --- p.19 / Data Analysis --- p.22 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- RESULTS --- p.23 / Behavior data --- p.23 / Functional MRI data-group data --- p.24 / Functional MRI data-individual data --- p.32 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- DISCUSSION --- p.36 / REFERENCES --- p.41 / APPENDIX 1 --- p.49

by Zhou Lan. / Some appendixes in Chinese. / Publication date from spine. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-130). / Acknow1edgements / Abstract / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- The Problem --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- The Scope of the Study --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- The Significance of the Study --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Definition of Terms --- p.7 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1 --- Cummin's Interdependence Hypothesis --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- The SUP and CUP Models of Bilingual Proficiency --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Evaluating Cummin's Interdependence Hypothesis --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Understanding Cummin's Interdepend- ence Hypothesis --- p.17 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- Alderson's View on Reading in a Foreign Language --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1.4.1 --- Alderson's hypotheses --- p.19 / Chapter 2.1.4.2 --- The Threshold Level(s) in L2 Reading Comprehension --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Bialystok-Ryan Metacognitive Model (1985) --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Introduction --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The Dimension of Analyzed Linguistic Knowledge --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- The Dimension of Cognitive Control --- p.29 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- "Analyzed Linguistic Knowledge, Cognitive Control and L2 Reading Comprehension" --- p.32 / Chapter 2.3 --- Working Memory and Reading Comprehension --- p.36 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Working Memory and Reading in L2 --- p.39 / Chapter 2.4 --- Intelligence and Reading Comprehension --- p.41 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- The Concept of Intelligence --- p.41 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- The Relationship between Intelli- gence and Reading Comprehension --- p.44 / Chapter 2.5 --- Ryan & Ryan's Study (1993) and the Hypotheses of the Present Study --- p.45 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Theoretical Constructs Employedin G & R's Study --- p.45 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- G & R's Study --- p.47 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- Areas Examined in G & R's Study --- p.47 / Chapter 2.5.4 --- The Focuses of the Present Study --- p.48 / Chapter 2.5.5 --- The Hypotheses --- p.53 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Design of the Study --- p.54 / Chapter 3.1 --- Design Characteristics --- p.54 / Chapter 3.2 --- The Pilot Study --- p.58 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- The Pilot Subjects and Tests --- p.60 / Chapter 3.3 --- The Main Study --- p.63 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- The Subjects --- p.64 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- The Procedure --- p.64 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Data Analysis --- p.67 / Chapter 3.4 --- Limitations --- p.69 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Results --- p.71 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.71 / Chapter 4.2 --- Correlation Tables --- p.73 / Chapter 4.3 --- Analysis of Variance --- p.74 / Chapter 4.4 --- Correlation Tables --- p.75 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Discussion and Implications --- p.91 / Chapter 5.1 --- The First Research Question and Hypothesis --- p.92 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- The Definition of the Threshold Level(s) in Reading in L2 (English) and the Relativity of the Level(s) --- p.95 / Chapter 5.2 --- The Second Research Question and Hypothesis --- p.97 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Intelligence and L1 (Chinese) and L2 (English) Reading Comprehension --- p.98 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- L1 (Chinese) Working Memory and L1 Reading Comprehension --- p.103 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- "L1 (Chinese) Analyzed Linguistic Knowledge, L1 Cognitive Control and LI Reading Comprehension" --- p.105 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Third Research Question and Hypothesis --- p.107 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- L2 (English) Working Memory and L2 Reading Comprehension --- p.107 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- "L2 (English) Analyzed Linguistic Knowledge, L2 Cognitive Control and L2Reading Comprehension" --- p.108 / Chapter 5.4 --- The Fourth Research Question and Hypothesis --- p.111 / Chapter 5.4.1 --- Summary of the Four Research Questions and Hypotheses --- p.112 / Chapter 5.5 --- The Fifth Research Question --- p.114 / Chapter 5.6 --- The Sixth Research Question --- p.116 / Chapter 5.7 --- Summary and Suggestions --- p.119 / Chapter 5.7.1 --- Summary --- p.119 / Chapter 5.7.2 --- Suggestions for Future Research --- p.120 / REFERENCES --- p.122 / Appendices / Chapter A. --- English reading comprehension test --- p.131 / Chapter B. --- English working memory test --- p.151 / Chapter C. --- English cognitive control test --- p.146 / Chapter D. --- English analyzed linguistic knowledge test --- p.148 / Chapter E. --- Chinese reading comprehension test --- p.150 / Chapter F. --- Chinese working memory test --- p.151 / Chapter G. --- Chinese cognitive control test --- p.154 / Chapter H. --- Chinese analyzed linguistic test --- p.155 / Chapter I. --- Intelligence test --- p.156 / Chapter J. --- English proficiency test --- p.157

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Speech and Hearing Sciences and Cognitive Science, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: B, page: 0226. Adviser: Raquel Anderson. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed Feb. 22, 2007)."

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1996. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 457-463). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : [51]-55).