From letter migrations between words in typical and dyslexic Arabic readers to the nature of the orthographic-visual analyzer
Project description
Reading is of the most complex and critical skills that humans must master in our society depending on neuro-cognitive processes and educational interventions. Reading rely on the active sampling of visual information during eye-fixations and require a visual system that allows one to recognize rapidly and in parallel a visual word from a crowd of letter features. Comparative research of different language families (Semitic such as Arabic) is necessary since different scripts pose different challenges for skilled readers and individuals with attentional dyslexia. Attentional dyslexia is a reading deficit in which letters migrate between neighbouring words, but are correctly identified and keep their correct relative position within the word (big-fan read as fig-ban) this error occurs also by skilled readers under short exposure durations. The study aims to explore how naturally spaced/unspaced words as Arabic unconnected, connected, and mixed words influence letter migrations between word. In this study, we compare the reading of skilled readers in short exposure to the reading reported for Arabic-speaking individuals with developmental attentional dyslexia. We aim to test the similarities and differences between the reading in the two populations in several aspects, such as the types of connected\unconnected\mixed words, between-word errors, the effect of reading direction, sensitive positions for between-word letter migration, and the effect of morphology. Using innovational eye tracking technique with eye movement, micro-saccades and pupillometry measures will shed more light on the intersection between visual characteristics of Arabic orthography and letter migrations between words of dyslexic and typical readers.
About me
I have a B.A in Psychology from Haifa university, M.A in Neuropsychology from Ben-Gurion university , M.A in Learning Disabilities Haifa university, a third M.A in Clinical-Educational Psychology from Haifa university and a Ph. D in Psychology from Bar-Ilan university.
I have several research interests including Visual Letter & Word Recognition, Typography of Arabic Texts, Reading & Writing, Numerical Cognition, Learning Disabilities, Psycholinguistics, Bilingualism, and Laterality. My main focus is to investigate the Arabic language which is not studied in these fields compared to other western languages (“anglocentricity”) and to Hebrew narrowing the universality and generalizability of psycholinguistic theories, models and processes until Arabic and other under-represented languages are investigated. I believe that the unique characteristics of the Arabic orthography in the levels of letter, word and text are interesting and have great implications on theoretical models of language processing such as the differential roles of orthographic, phonological, semantic, morpho-syntactic, lexical and non-lexical processes in reading. In addition, my research utilizes the uniqueness of the Arabic numerical system in comparison with other systems. Numbers and especially two-digit numbers in Arabic language differ in both lexical and syntactic structure compared to other languages. In the clinical aspect, I have great interest in adjusting screening tools, diagnostics tests and intervention programs learning disabilities into Arabic.