Abstract
Second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students of high or low reading ability and college students carried out a visual-search task in which they scanned a list of 10 words, looking for a target word which was changed every trial or remained constant during an entire session. Search time increased linearly with serial position, consistent with a serial self-terminating model of visual search. The search rate increased from 3.3 words/sec in the second grade to 8.4 words/sec in college. Reading ability was not a significant factor in any comparisons. These results on the development of visual-search ability agree with others in showing that with increasing age there is a marked increase in search speed. However, retarded readers are as competent as their age peers on this task, suggesting that reading dysfunction must be traced to other deficiencies.
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This research was supported in part by the Wisconsin Research and Development Center lor Cognitive Learning with funds from the U.S. Office of Education, Contract OE 5-10-154, and in part by Grant MH 12637 to the second author from the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Leslie, R., Calfee, R.C. Visual searh through word lists as a function of grade level, reading ability, and target repetition. Perception & Psychophysics 10, 169–171 (1971). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205780
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205780