The gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm was used to assess the size and symmetry of the perceptual span in older readers. The eye movements of 49 cognitively intact older adults (60–88 years of age) were recorded as they read sentences varying in difficulty, and the availability of letter information to the right and left of fixation was manipulated. To reconcile discrepancies in previous estimates of the perceptual span in older readers, individual differences in written language proficiency were assessed with tests of vocabulary, reading comprehension, reading speed, spelling ability, and print exposure. The results revealed that higher proficiency older adults extracted information up to 15 letter spaces to the right of fixation, while lower proficiency readers showed no additional benefit beyond 9 letters to the right. However, all readers showed improvements to reading with the availability of up to 9 letters to the left—confirming previous evidence of reduced perceptual span asymmetry in older readers. The findings raise questions about whether the source of age-related changes in parafoveal processing lies in the adoption of a risky reading strategy involving an increased propensity to both guess upcoming words and make corrective regressions.

视线移动窗口范式用于评估年龄较大的读者的感知范围的大小和对称性。记录了49位认知完好的老年人（60-88岁）的眼球运动，他们阅读了难度各不相同的句子，并操纵了左右两侧固定字母的信息。为了调和以前阅读者对感知距离的估计中的差异，通过词汇测试，阅读理解，阅读速度，拼写能力和印刷品暴露程度来评估书面语言能力的个体差异。结果显示，熟练度较高的成年人在注视权的右侧最多提取了15个字母的信息，而熟练度较低的读者则在右侧的9个字母之外没有显示更多的益处。然而，所有读者在阅读方面都有所改善，左侧最多可以有9个字母，这证实了以前有证据表明老年读者的感知跨度不对称性降低。这些发现引起了有关胎盘旁处理中与年龄相关的变化的根源是否在于采用危险阅读策略的问题，该策略涉及猜测即将出现的单词并进行校正回归的倾向增加。