The E-Z Reader model (Reichle et al. 1998; 1999) provides a theoretical framework for understanding how word identification, visual processing, attention, and oculomotor control jointly determine when and where the eyes move during reading. In this article, we first review what is known about eye movements during reading. Then we provide an updated version of the model (E-Z Reader 7) and describe how it accounts for basic findings about eye movement control in reading. We then review several alternative (...) models of eye movement control in reading, discussing both their core assumptions and their theoretical scope. On the basis of this discussion, we conclude that E-Z Reader provides the most comprehensive account of eye movement control during reading. Finally, we provide a brief overview of what is known about the neural systems that support the various components of reading, and suggest how the cognitive constructs of our model might map onto this neural architecture. Key Words: attention; eye-movement control; E-Z Reader; fixations; lexical access; models; reading; regressions; saccades. (shrink)

E-Z Reader 7 is a processing model of eye-movement control. One constraint imposed on the model is that high-level cognitive processes do not influence eye movements unless normal reading processes are disturbed. I suggest that this constraint is unnecessary, and that the model provides a sensible architecture for explaining how both low- and high-level processes influence eye movements.

E-Z Reader's account of the interaction between oculomotor and cognitive processes depends critically on distinguishing between early and late stages of lexical processing, because this distinction allows saccadic programming to be decoupled from shifts of attention. Precisely specifying the nature of this distinction has important implications both for current models of lexical retrieval and for the development of E-Z Reader 8.

We argue that although E-Z Reader does a good job in simulating many basic facts related to readers' eye movements, two phenomena appear to pose a challenge to the model. The first has to do with word length mediating the way compound words are identified; the second concerns the effects of initial fixation position in a word on eye behavior.

Chinese readers' eye movements were simulated in the context of the E-Z Reader model, which was developed to account for the eye movements of readers of English. Despite obvious differences between English and Chinese, the model did a fairly good job of simulating the eye movements of Chinese readers. The successful simulation suggests that the control of eye movements in reading Chinese is similar to that in an alphabetic language such as English.

This commentary focuses on the two basic assumptions of the E-Z Reader model, discussing the possibility that adjacent words in reading may be processed in parallel rather than serially, and presenting evidence against a cognitive control of eye guidance in reading.

We tested whether the E-Z Reader model can be generalised to the French language. The simulation showed that the model can account for the frequency effect. The predictability effect is moreover accurate for word skipping, but not for fixation times. We think that this model is psychologically plausible for certain aspects of reading and we have used it to evaluate the performance of dyslexic readers.

We discuss five basic principles of E-Z Reader in terms of their potential for models of eye-movement control in object and scene perception. We identify several obstacles which may hinder the extrapolation of the E-Z Reader principles to nonreading tasks, yet find that sufficient similarities remain to justify using E-Z Reader as a guide for modeling eye-movement control in object and scene perception.

This commentary focuses on two aspects of eye movement behaviour that E-Z Reader 7 currently makes no attempt to explain: the influence of higher order psycholinguistic processes on fixation durations, and orthographic influences on initial and refixation locations on words. From our understanding of the current version of the model, it is not clear how it may be readily modified to account for existing empirical data.

Unlike most anthologies in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, the present selection does not try to collect representative extracts from the writings of most, or even many, important aestheticians throughout the ages. It aims for depth rather than width and tries to do as much justice as possible to those aestheticians which it does include, without bothering much about those left out. The result is really impressive. No less than 138 pages are devoted to Plato and Aristotle alone, where (...) the reader may find not only the usual passages from the Poetics and the Rhetoric but also relevant material from De Partibus Animalium and Politica. Such an anthology, so it seems, must be an opinionated one. Thus, while it contains some 70 pages of Dewey's Art as Experience, there is not a single line of Santayana in it. Although I disagree with the choice made in this case, I cannot but admire the courage it took to make it. Another surprise is the inclusion of the relatively obscure mediaeval thinker, Marsilio Ficino, in an anthology which excludes Baumgarten, Lessing, Burke, Schiller, Coleridge, Bosanquet and Alexander, to mention but few, and whose sole contemporary representative is Heidegger. The extracts from Ficino's commentary on Plato prove, however, to be highly interesting and relatively original, too. Thus, even if Ficino is not as great as some of the aestheticians not included in this volume, I, for one, would not regret this mark of personal, off-beat, taste. The last selection, Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art," appearing for the first time in English translation, comes as special bonus to the reader. The editors' introductions to each selection are generally concise, precise, and very helpful. Sometimes, however, one may find an exception: in their introduction to the Heidegger translation, the editors characterize the Kehre as a "reversal... from the stress on anxiety, nothingness... to a stress on more affirmative moods." This is, to say the least, a grossly misleading remark, which is likely to confuse the student of the later Heidegger rather than help him.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

The first six chapters of this book present and criticize six views of the nature of proper names, among which are theories that proper names have no meaning or connotation, that proper names have more meaning than other signs or that their meaning is infinite, that ordinary proper names should be analysed into "logically" proper names, etc. This part of the book is the best. One may find in these chapters several well-reasoned arguments which seem to totally demolish the theories (...) under investigation. Chapters seven to nine present the author's own solution to the problem. Sørensen holds that a proper name does have a meaning—otherwise it would not have been a part of language at all. The meaning of a linguistic sign, he argues, is a set of conditions to be satisfied by an extra-linguistic entity, such that this entity may be identified as denoted by the said sign. A proper name is an individual name, and its meaning is a series of necessary and sufficient conditions for the identification of the individual entity which this name is intended to denote. It is Sørensen's view that this series consists of a definite description of final length including space and time indicators. The definiens formula for proper names is thus 'P' = 'the x that... t... p....' The discussion of this proposal is, however, greatly impaired by Sørensen's utter disregard for the rich philosophical literature existing on the subject: no attempt is made to confront his view with the now standard arguments against theories of that type. Even many inner difficulties of the proposed solution are ignored. E.g., one may ask what values do 't' and 'p' take in the definition of 'Zeus'. Or take the following puzzle: are 'The x that taught Aristotle in p at t' and 'The x that studied with Socrates in p at t' both the meaning of 'Plato'? Sørensen's view that "A national register may be looked upon as a dictionary of proper names" suggests a positive answer, but surely R and S cannot be the same meaning. Many similar problems bother the reader of Sørensen's book, but, unfortunately, they are nowhere discussed.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired (...) comparisons between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

Although the E-Z Reader model accounts well for eye-tracking data, it will be judged by new predictions and consistency with evidence from brain imaging methodologies. The stage architecture proposed for lexical access seems somewhat arbitrary and calculated timings are conservatively slow. There are certain effects in the literature that seem incompatible with the model.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 307-310 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetics, Criticism, and Psychotherapy John Z. Sadler Keywords aesthetics, psychiatry, psychotherapy, Sibley In his wide-ranging survey of how Kantian aesthetic theory is implicated in psychothera-py, John Callender has raised at least a dozen potentially profound and rewarding possibilities in applying aesthetic theory to psychiatry and psychotherapy. Although the idea of marrying aesthetic theory to psychiatry and psychotherapy is (...) not new, Callender's direction of the merger is distinctively novel. The mid-twentieth century had a distinct literature in applying psychoanalytic and psychiatric theory to aesthetic experience, summarized by the sizable bibliography by Norman Kiell, Psychiatry and Psychology in the Visual Arts and Aesthetics: A Bibliography (1965). This line of interdisciplinary work influenced a later generation of art historians and literary theorists in applying (particularly) psychoanalytic theory to interpretation and appreciation of the arts, contributions that are still being developed today, along with the emergence of complementary viewpoints from cognitive neuroscience (Peretz and Zatorre 2003; Rose 2004; Zeki 1999). Callender's project, however, is quite the converse—he wishes to show how philosophical aesthetics can contribute to psychiatry and clinical psychology. Exploring the aesthetics of psychiatry is the innovation.Before focusing my own comments on a few of Callender's points, I wish to call attention to the substantive questions he has directly raised or implied by his discussions. These questions are worthy of further development in this and other journals, and I hope that Callender will succeed in engaging the minds of his readers and inspire them to work in this exciting area in the philosophy of psychiatry. In his elegant review of Kant's key theoretical points of aesthetics, his discussion provokes us to consider the kinds of evaluations that patients make of themselves (moral? aesthetic? others?), as well as the kinds of evaluations clinicians make in their judgments of psychopathology. Evolutionists may wonder about the adaptive significance of aesthetic capacities (e.g., derivatives of grooming? mating displays?). In presenting Kant's notion of "disinterestedness" or contemplative judgment, readers may wonder about overlap with notions of therapist neutrality and unconditional positive regard. Should therapist relationships with patients be dominated by a similar aesthetic sensibility? What does the aesthetic posture have to do with the therapist posture?Importantly, Callender notes the connections and ambiguities between moral values and aesthetic values. This is borne out in his later discussions of clinical case material (considered again below). He focuses primarily on the duplication of aesthetic and moral values in the same terms of praise (honesty, integrity, originality), but there is no question that aesthetic experiences are had by viewers of art exhibiting perverse or depraved [End Page 307] imagery (consider, for instance, Francis Bacon's "3 Screaming Popes" or, even more extremely, the grotesque staged photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin). The implication here is that (as an example) to understand the aesthetics of sadomasochistic art may help us to understand the psychology of sadomasochistic people.By the time he introduces his case material, Callender has raised the issue of intersubjectivity in aesthetic experience, an experience that may be devoid of discursive cognitive content but may be profound with emotional content, thus challenging tenets of cognitive psychology and psychotherapy. His discussion of cases reflecting elements of Kant's components of aesthetic judgment point toward new ways of understanding psychopathology as disturbances in aesthetic self-appraisal.I would like to return to the problem of moral and aesthetic judgments in psychotherapy and in psychopathology. Dr. Callender presents three cases—a woman who has been traumatized by multiple instances of sexual abuse, a young girl with postpartum depression with fears of losing her child because of bad mothering, and a third patient with anorexia nervosa who demonstrates the typically distorted body self-image. I suggest that the aesthetic nature of these patients' self-judgments is not so clear cut as Callender suggests. His sexual abuse case summary certainly suggests a woman consumed by shame. Because shame is a typical "moral emotion," the question is raised of moral badness being involved in her self-concept as well as, or perhaps... (shrink)

Although some of Helmholtz’s scientific suggestions are dated with the progress of science, his ontological statements as well as his epistemological studies are still an object of philosophical controversy. The selection of Helmholtz’s epistemological writings, edited as volume 79 in the Synthese Library, contains four papers originally published in German between 1868 and 1887. In these papers are considered among others the epistemological aspects of measuring and numbering, the issues of perceptual cognition, the theory of geometrical knowledge, and the relationship (...) between science and metaphysics. The present collection of the Helmholtz’s articles was previously edited in German, on the centenary of his birth, under the title Schriften zur Erkenntnistheorie. The editors, M. Schlick and P. Hertz, sharing the opinion that Helmholtz’s name is a symbol of a union between epistemologically oriented philosophy and science, had selected from his many epistemological writings only four—the most representative and the most complete. In order to make the papers intelligible not only to philosophers but also to general readers, Schlick and Hertz supplemented the primary texts with explanatory remarks and comments. Some of them have a general introductory character, explaining, for instance, the difference between induction and deduction or elucidating Locke’s conception of two kinds of properties; the others present useful syntheses of methodological solutions, comparing, e.g., Carnap’s or Reichenbach’s ideas with Helmholtz’s. (shrink)

Reingold, Reichle, Glaholt, and Sheridan reported a gaze-contingent eye-movement experiment in which survival-curve analyses were used to examine the effects of word frequency, the availability of parafoveal preview, and initial fixation location on the time course of lexical processing. The key results of these analyses suggest that lexical processing begins very rapidly and is supported by substantial parafoveal processing. Because it is not immediately obvious that these results are congruent with the theoretical assumption that words are processed and identified in (...) a strictly serial manner, we attempted to simulate the experiment using the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control. These simulations were largely consistent with the empirical results, suggesting that parafoveal processing does play an important functional role by allowing lexical processing to occur rapidly enough to mediate direct control over when the eyes move during reading. (shrink)

The E-Z Reader model assumes that the parafoveal selection for fixation and the subsequent selection for attention allocation encompass the same spatially distinct letter cluster. Recent data suggest, however, that an individual letter sequence is selected for fixation and that more than one letter sequence can be selected for attention allocation (processing).

E-Z Reader is a highly successful model of eye-movement control, employing the notion of a serial-sequential attentional spotlight switched from word to word. Evidence of parallel processing of words in text calls this notion into question. Modifications to the model to accommodate this evidence are possible but will not address the fundamental objection that reading should not be seen as “surrogate listening.”.

E-Z Reader fits key parameters from one corpus of eye movement data, but has not really been tested with new data sets. More critically, it is argued that the key mechanism driving eye movements – a serial process involving a proportion of word recognition time – is implausible on the basis of a broad range of experimental findings.

E-Z Reader achieves an impressive fit of empirical eye movement data by simulating core processes of reading in a computational approach that includes serial word processing, shifts of attention, and temporal overlap in the programming of saccades. However, when common assumptions for the time requirements of these processes are taken into account, severe constraints on the time line within which these elements can be combined become obvious. We argue that it appears difficult to accommodate these processes within a largely (...) sequential modeling framework such as E-Z Reader. (shrink)

The E-Z Reader 7 model is powerful but incomplete. When programming the saccade to the next word, we take into account the familiarity of the letter sequences at the beginning of that word. This landing position effect is well established, but is neglected in the model. A possible locus for the effect is suggested within the E-Z Reader framework.

A work ethic is people's attitude to work—imprinted in a complex of moral values and norms, embodied in categories and examples of the culture, and expressed in human behavior, above all in the sphere of labor activity. In my understanding, a work ethic is a component part of the socioeconomic genotype of a society. A SEG is a kind of information mechanism of "social inheritance" that ensures the reproduction of the structure and principles of a particular social system's functioning, regulation, (...) and learning process. It comprises a system of values, a set of motivations, and a paradigm of economic management and administration, and in its manifest form it is reflected in the contours of the regulation and administration of socioeconomic processes, including legal, administrative, economic, and moral norms and incentives. A SEG itself is based on the system of social interests and on the particular society's culture. (shrink)

F.-W. von Herrmann was a close associate of Heidegger during the final four years of the philosopher’s life. During that time, he not only had many conversations with him, but was also granted access to many writings just now appearing in the Gesamtausgabe. As a result of his proximity to Heidegger, as well as to his writings, von Herrmann seems in a unique position to provide an authoritative account of Heidegger’s work.

This excellent work defends the radical nature of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology from those who want to turn it into a kind of realism. The influence of such "revisionists" "is so strong at present that the historical Husserl threatens to vanish from sight completely". Husserl, de Boer insists, eventually defined consciousness as absolute being which constitutes the world within itself. "Husserl’s entire development becomes incomprehensible when this idealism is denied". According to de Boer, Franz Brentano convinced the young Husserl that the (...) aim of philosophy was to find a way of anchoring norms in the face of relativism and historicism. Brentano sought to use scientific methodology to found a descriptive psychology which could in turn form the basis for normative sciences. Like Brentano, Husserl was taken with the idea of developing a "rigorous science" of consciousness which would help provide rational a priori values in the face of the irrational world-views so prevalent in the first part of the century. Husserl’s turn away from his early empiricism and naturalism and his eventual adoption of transcendental idealism follows from his attempt to solve three problems in Brentano’s work: 1) the relation between things in themselves and the immanent intentional object; 2) the method for founding a priori truths; 3) the naturalistic attitude inherent in Brentano’s view that positivistic-genetic psychology and phenomenological psychology have equal value in the study of consciousness. Husserl solved the second problem with the notion of the intuition of essences. He solved the first and third problems with the discovery of transcendental idealism in 1908. De Boer maintains that the denial of the thing in itself, which is still presupposed in the naturalistic standpoint operating in Logische Untersuchungen, "is the most important step of all in Husserl’s development". The notion of the thing in itself is common to the naturalistic-dogmatic belief that on the one hand there is a realm of objects independent of consciousness and that on the other hand there is consciousness which has some experience of those objects. In LU, Husserl simply suspended the question of the relation of the thing in itself to consciousness because he still regarded the latter as a kind of island within the "real" world, to which natural science alone has direct access. Despite the fact that LU rejected the naturalizing of ideas, LU continued to regard consciousness in a naturalistic way. Only the "Copernican revolution" of transcendental idealism enabled Husserl to see that the foundation of all being is absolute mind or consciousness. Because consciousness "constitutes" reality in a creative and productive sense, there is no point in speaking of a "thing in itself." Husserl’s transcendental reduction does not deny "reality," but merely rejects the naturalistic tendency to absolutize it. (shrink)

Computational models such as E-Z Reader and SWIFT are ideal theoretical tools to test quantitatively our current understanding of eye-movement control in reading. Here we present a mathematical analysis of word skipping in the E-Z Reader model by semianalytic methods, to highlight the differences in current modeling approaches. In E-Z Reader, the word identification system must outperform the oculomotor system to induce word skipping. In SWIFT, there is competition among words to be selected as a saccade target. (...) We conclude that it is the question of competitors in the “game” of word skipping that must be solved in eye movement research. (shrink)

Parameters in E-Z Reader models are estimated on the basis of a simple data set consisting of 30 means. Because of heavy aggregation, the data have a severe problem of multicolinearity and are unable to adequately constrain parameter values. This could give the model more power than the empirical data warrant. Future models should exploit the richness of eye movement data and avoid excessive aggregation.

To date, our knowledge of Rift Valley fever disease spread and maintenance is still limited, as flooding, humid weather and presence of biting insects such as mosquitoes, have not completely explained RVF outbreaks. We propose a model that includes livestock, mosquitoes and ticks compartments structured according to their questing and feeding behaviour in order to study the possible role of ticks on the dynamics of RVF. To quantify disease transmission at the initial stage of the epidemic, we derive an explicit (...) formula of the basic reproductive number, $$R_0$$ R 0. Using the concept of Metzler matrix, we state necessary conditions for global asymptotic stability of the disease-free equilibrium. Results suggest that although host-ticks interactions may serve as disease reservoirs or disease amplifiers, the Aedes reproductive number should be kept under unity if disease post-epizootics activities are to be controlled. Results of both local and global sensitivity analysis of selected model parameters indicate that $$R_0$$ R 0 is more sensitive to the ticks attachment and detachment rates, probability of transmission from ticks to host and from host to ticks, length of infection in livestock and ticks death rate. Furthermore, when comparing the mean value of $$R_0$$ R 0 with that from previous studies which did not include ticks we found that our $$R_0$$ R 0 is very much larger resulting in an increase in the exponential phase of an outbreak. These findings suggest that if ticks are capable of transmitting the virus, they may be contributing to disease outbreaks and endemicity. (shrink)

This collection reconsiders the notion of life and conceptualizes those forms of life which have been excluded from modern philosophy, such as post-Anthropocene life, the life of non-human animals and the life of inorganic objects"-- Provided by publisher.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 89 MODERNIST HERESIES K.yE. Garay Arts & Science/Research Collections / McMaster U. Hamilton, on, Canada l8s 4m2 garay@mcmaster.ca Damon Franke. Modernist Heresies: British Literary History, 1883–1924. Columbus : Ohio State U. P., 2008. Pp. xx, 258. isbn 978-0-8142-1074-1 (hb). us$47.95. The editor of the Russell journal summed up Modernist Heresies: British Literary History, 1883–1924z with his usual brevity during a (...) recent conversation : “The Wrst part is about Russell and the rest of it isn’t.” In fact the Wrst two chapters are only somewhat concerned with Russell, since he Wgures as part of the Heretical Cambridge scene with which Damon Franke opens this study, but, September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 90 Reviews after a Xeeting appearance of both Russells, Bertie and Dora, in the opening pages of Chapter 3, Bertie is not heard from again. Franke, who teaches English at the University of Southern Mississippi, has set himself an ambitious task, the scope of which is not fully captured in this book’s title. The selection of no fewer than ten subject headings in the cataloguing data for this studyz—zheadings ranging from “Modernism (Literature)” through “English Literature”, “Religion and Literature”, “Heresies, Christian”, and “Paganism in Literature”z—zprovides the wary reader withsome forewarning of its breadth. The author’s focus is on nothing less than the emergence and development of modernism in England, using the rise and demise of what Franke terms “heresy” as his barometer. Nor does the ascribed date range, 1883– 1924, prove much more accurate; in one of the most persuasive segments of the book, the After Words, Franke extends his examination, Wrst into the 1930s and then as far as 1949, the year that Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Fourz was published. Selecting as his starting point the 1883 blasphemy trial of G.yW. Foote, the editor of The Freethinker, at which the right to attack “even the fundamentals of religion” was enshrined in English law, providing that “the decencies of controversy” are observed (p. 10), Franke argues that this decision made possible “intellectual and literary forms of heresy which questioned the principles of religion ” (ibid.). His use of the term “heresy” for his wide ranging survey of philosophical and linguistic as well as literary opinion, provoked pause in this reader. The Oxford English Dictionary, the Wrst edition of which appeared the year after Foote’s heresy trial, provides a primary deWnition of heresy as follows: Theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the “catholic” or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. It is only through an extended deWnition of heresy that the door opens to allow Franke’s highly variable use of the term: “Opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative ” (OED Online, 2008). As will be demonstrated, aspects of thought which the less adventurous might prefer to call agnosticism, paganism or even atheism, are subsumed into the wide-ranging scope of this provocative study. The Cambridge Heretics, the group of which Russell was an Honorary Member, provides Franke with both his heretical cornerstone and his book’s opening chapters. In a skilfully contextualized examination, Franke documents the group’s Michaelmas 1909 genesis in the shadow, or perhaps in the intellectual light, of the Chawner ATairz—zthe Master of Emmanuel’s public expression of his personal loss of religious faith. Its Wrst chairman was C.yM. Picciotto, but it was its Wrst secretary, C.yK. Ogden, a newly arrived Magdalene College under- September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 91 graduate, who was to prove the group’s guiding genius. Franke argues convincingly that the group, which included Bernard Shaw, J.yM. Keynes, I.yA. Richards and G.yE. Moore, as well as Russell, in its membership roster, has suTered puzzling scholarly neglect, particularly when compared with the Apostles, its... (shrink)

As in the Arab and Persian literatures, many works have been written on the education and teaching of tajwīd, which provides the correct reading of the Qurʼān in Islamic Turkish Literature. Works on this subject were written generally as prose. Besides, some of these works were written in verse style because of practical benefits in education. In this context, the work named Ẓafar written by S̲h̲umnulu Ḥilmī Efendi (d. 1200/1785-86), which is one of the poetical tajwīds that has not been (...) studied enough, is one of the works that can be evaluated under a separate title within religious literaty genres such as forty hadith, ʻaqāʼidnāme and s̲h̲urūt al-ṣalāt (pillars or prayer). This study primarily deals with Ḥilmī Efendi’s tajwīd of verse in Turkish, named Ẓafar, with form and content analysis. The aim of the study is to give information about Ḥilmī Efendi, based on his works and to reveal the text of the work named Ẓafar, which has been transcribed. The importance of the study stems from the fact that it will introduce the first Turkish tajwīd written in verse as far as it has been identified and the master of qırāʼat poet author who can be accepted as the founder of this genre.Summary: During the formation of Islamic sciences such as tafsīr, hadīth, kalām, fiḳh, and ḳırāʼat many works related to these sciences were written in Arabic, Persian, and Kurdish languages. After Turks met with Islam, works were written in verse and prose style to learn the al-Ḳurʼān, the hadīth and the sciences that would help to understand these two sources in order to live a true faith and worship life. On the other hand, as a result of the writing of verse works, some literary genres emerged in Turkish Islamic literature. This issue has also been appeared in the science of tajwīd, which is defined as “a set of rules for the correct pronunciation of the letters with all their qualities” and which ensures the Ḳurʼān to be read properly. As a matter of fact, the writing of both prose and verse tajwīd works defined as a religious-literary genre is an indication of this phenomenon. For instance, Tuḥfe-i Şerīfī (S̲h̲erīfī d. 1260/1844) and Naẓmuʼl-Ehem (S̲h̲eyhī d. 1235/1819-20) are examples of verse tajwīd works. In this context, one of the verse tajwīds is Ẓafar, which is defined by his own writer, S̲h̲umnulu Ḥilmī Efendi, as the first work written in this type.The author of the work, Ḥilmī Efendi, lived in Vardar Yenicesi (Giannitsa) for a long time and died in Hijāz in 1200 (1785-86), is one of the 18th century authors and an specialist in the field. In the work named Osmanli Müellifleri (Bursalı Meḥmed Ṭāhir, 1333 / Ottoman Authors) it is stated that he has works named Manẓūm Tajwīd (Ẓafar) and Manẓūm S̲h̲urūt-ı ṣalāt (Naẓm-ı nefīs) and that he wrote death dates with poetry on the gravestones of the grandchildren of G̲h̲āzī Evrenos Bey (d. 820/1417) and an Arabic khatim prayer. Information about Ḥilmī Efendi's personality, educational life, and scientific level could not be found. One of the works of Ḥilmī Efendi is Naẓm-ı nefīs, which was written in 1190/1776-77, and is in the form of S̲h̲urūt-ı ṣalāt. In this work of 125 couplets except for the title of “Tertīb-i Secāvend-i Ḥurūf” (fāʻilātün fāʻilātün fāʻilün) the author used the meter of the fāʻilātün fāʻilātün fāʻilātün fāʻilün and preferred the masnavī as a form of verse. The work consists of a introduction of 9 couplets, a main part of 24 couplets, an addition and conclusion of 3 couplets.Another work of Ḥilmī Efendi is the work called Ẓafar in the form of verse tajwīd, which he wrote on the request of some of his friends and which is the main subject of this study. There is no record of the writing date of this work. This study also includes the transcribed text of the work. However, when considering the period the author lived in and the time of his other work Naẓm-ı nefīs (1190/1776-77) it is estimated that Ẓafar was written after the second half of the 18th century. However no manuscript copy of Ẓafar could be found. Therefore, for the text to be transcribed in this study, the oldest dated and printed copy with Arabic diacritics of the work (Istanbul: Dār at-tıbāʻa al-āmire, 1265) was taken as basis. In this copy, the work was incorrectly named as Tajwīd-i Manẓūm. Also, there are some typographical errors in the headlines or text; these errors were tried to be corrected. It consists of 71 couplets; an introduction and 25 main titles. Ẓafar, written was written in half, full and rich rhyme. In some places, as well as rhyme, redif (repeated voice) created with an appendix or a word was used. The work has a clear, intriguing and narrative language and expression.Traditionally, the author starts his work by praising God, salawat, prayer, followed by a statement about the importance and the provisions of the learning tajwīd. Then the author gives informations about some tajwīd subjects such as ḥarf-i med, sebeb-i med, medd-i muttaṣıl, medd-i munfaṣıl, and so forth.The author bases on the Ḥafṣ narration of the ḳırāʼat of the ʻĀṣım probably because of taking into account the readers. Another point that draws attention in the work is that the tajwīd issues are explained shorter and clearer compared to other verse tajwīds. There are also no secondary topics such as ţūl, tevaṣṣut, ḳaṣr, ḥarf-i muḫaffefe, kelime-i müṡaḳḳale or istiʻāẕe-basmala, states of tā-i teʼnīṡ. To provide an easy memoration Ḥilmī Efendi does not apply the method of formulations of letters corresponding to the bases such as ikhfā, iẓhār as in many other tajwīd Works. Instead, he writes the letters of a specific rule one by one. Additionally, he does not give many examples from Qurʾān verses to consolidate the rules, and sometimes refers only to the surahs. With his work called Ẓafar, the author follows and represents the tradition of religious-literary works in general, and in particular, the tradition of the verse tajwīd. In some verse types of tajwīd works, for example, only subjects of ḳatʻ and vaṣl are discussed, however, in Ẓafar, most rules of tajwīd are included.It can also be said that the work has a special place and importance due to the possibility of being the first text (constituent text) written in verse tajwīd. On the other hand, when considering the conditions of the period and the fact that it was published more than once, it can be stated that Ẓafar was used as a material in educational activities and raised attention. (shrink)

The issues the commentators have raised and which we address, include: the debate over how attention is allocated during reading; our distinction between early and late stages of lexical processing; our assumptions about saccadic programming; the determinants of skipping and refixations; and the role that higher-level linguistic processing may play in influencing eye movements during reading. In addition, we provide a discussion of model development and principles for evaluating and comparing models. Although we acknowledge that E-Z Reader is incomplete, (...) we maintain that it provides a good framework for systematically trying to understand how the cognitive, perceptual, and motor systems influence the eyes during reading. (shrink)

A critical prediction of the E-Z Reader model is that experimental manipulations that disrupt early encoding of visual and orthographic features of the fixated word without affecting subsequent lexical processing should influence the processing difficulty of the fixated word without affecting the processing of the next word. We tested this prediction by monitoring participants’ eye movements while they read sentences in which a target word was presented either normally or altered. In the critical condition, the contrast between the target (...) word and the background was substantially reduced. Such a reduction in stimulus quality is typically assumed to have an impact that is largely confined to a very early stage of word recognition. Results were consistent with the E-Z Reader model: This faint presentation had a robust influence on the duration of fixations on the target word without substantially altering the processing of the next word. (shrink)

Reichle et al. argue that the mechanism that determines where to fixate the eyes is controlled mostly by low-level processes. Therefore, unlike other competing models (e.g., the SWIFT model), the E-Z Reader model cannot account for “global” regressions as a result of linguistic difficulties. We argue that the model needs to be extended to account for regressive saccades.

Evidence is presented for the notion that selection-for-perception and selection-for-action progress in parallel to become tightly coupled at the saccade target before the execution of the movement. Such a conception might be incorporated in the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading.

Reichle et al. claim to successfully simulate a frequency effect of 60% on skipping rate in human data, whereas the original article reports an effect of only 4%. We suspect that the deviation is attributable to the length of the words in the different conditions, which implies that E-Z Reader is wrong in its conception of eye guidance between words.

This commentary focuses on the limitations of the E-Z Reader model in its attempt to explain refixation saccades in reading. Listing factors that influence probability of refixating leads the model to assume two sorts of refixations. However, taking into account data on the metrics of refixation saccades allows us to propose an alternative explanation for empirical observations reported in the literature.

A central component in the E-Z Reader model is a two-stage word processing mechanism made responsible for both the triggering of eye movements and sequential shifts of attention. We point to problems with both the verbal description of this mechanism and its computational implementation in the simulation. As an alternative, we consider the use of a connectionist processing module in combination with a more indirect form of cognitive eye-movement control.

Reichle et al. specify two assumptions as being basic to E-Z Reader: Words are sequentially attended during fixations, and saccades are triggered by a cognitive event. We point out that there is little evidence for the first assumption and counterevidence for the second. Also, the labile/nonlabile stage distinction in saccade preparation seems to be contrary to current evidence. An alternative explanation of saccade onset times in reading assumes that saccades are strategically generated, independent of language processing, but are delayed (...) on a probabilistic basis by processing difficulties. (shrink)

I discuss evidence for direct linguistic control of refixations and argue that the E-Z Reader model's account of refixations requires elaboration or revision.

It is argued here that a critical prediction of the E-Z Reader model is that experimental manipulations that disrupt early encoding of visual and orthographic features of the fixated word without affecting subsequent lexical processing should influence the processing difficulty of the fixated word without producing any processing effect on the next word. This prediction is explained and illustrated.