Research Interests & Abilities (Keywords)

• Missing-Letter Effect
• Movements
• Processes
• screening
• reading
• problems
• eye

Major Research Activities

In the reading domain, my researches are centred around a simple experimental phenomenon: The Missing-Letter Effect (MLE). If, in reading, readers are also asked to circle all instances of a target letter, they will most likely miss many more of the target letters when they are embedded in a frequent function word such as "the" than in frequent content words like "top" or "ten". This robust finding, called the MLE and the many studies conducted to explain it point to its value as a window on the cognitive processes involved in reading. My work in this field has been centered around three main objectives. First, my work was devoted to isolating the factors involved in the MLE. Second, I investigated the interaction between the MLE and eye-movements. Third, I am developping a low-cost screening test of reading problems based on the MLE. I am also using the MLE to investigate the cognitive processes involved when a bilingual person is reading.

Network Research Projects

• The Missing-Letter Effect: A Window on the Development of First and Second Language Reading Skills  (Project Leader)
• Core Facility to Support Bilingual Literacy Research  (Project Leader)