READING AS A FUNDAMENTAL ACTIVITY WITHIN THE FIELD OF IMAGE PERCEPTION AND INTERPRETATION

BACKGROUND

As a result of the large scale review of the overall visual process and its mechanisms and the subsequent proposal of a largely new foundation for our knowledge of this field found in the treatise, PROCESSES IN ANIMAL VISION, a new understanding of the processes and mechanisms related to reading became available. It is the purpose of these web pages to share an overview of that understanding with the reader.

There is virtually no discussion in the literature of the fundamental mechanism supporting the perception and interpretation of a fine image within the visual system. The literature is generally limited to the study of the major motions of eye movement and quantifying the time interval between such major movements.

As in most other biological structures and mechanisms associated with vision, the facility associated with reading is very complex in detail yet beautiful in architecture and implementation.

There is no recognition in the current literature, that the fundamental facility providing the capability to read involves a signal path independent of the so-called Primary Visual Cortex.

In accordance with the above text, this site will present the process of reading as a mode of the opereation of the analytical signal analysis mechanism associated with the analytical signal path from the retina to the cortex of the brain.

Up until now, there has been no accepted or even proposed explanation as to how the visual system perceived and interpreted fine complex shapes. It has been tacitly assumed that the system somehow perceived the detailed shape of an image during the typically 30 millisecond time interval between the observable saccades of the eyes.

Beginning in the 1930's, a smattering of data related to tremor began to be collected both psychophyiologically and electro-physiologically. However, the instrumentation available was limited. A notable improvement occurred in the 1960's with the arrival of transistorized electronics. However, the design of adequate instrumentation has remained a problem to the current day.

In preparing this work, the data base of the neural field has been re-examined and shown to support a completely electronic, technically an electrolytic, foundation underlying the neural system in animals. The interpretation of this database has been aided by the discovery of the Activa, an active electrolytic semiconductor device similar to a man-made transistor. This new device also exhibits "transistor action," a key process in the operation of every synapse. It has also been able to explain in detail every Node of Ranvier and other internal junctions in the neural system. No solution to the operation of these other junctions has ever been offered based on a neurotransmitter hypothesis.

This work overturns the conventional assumption that the eye analyzes a stationary image during the fixation interval between major saccades. It is shown that the eye is continually moving during this interval, that is more appropriately described as a gaze. Proof of the new paradigm is provided at a level of detail never approached in the current literature of reading research. The following material will demonstrate this claim. The level of detail supporting this new understanding of the facility of reading can be presented on line. Referral to the full text is necessary. To aid in this referral, Section numbers of the main work will be provided within square brackets throughout these web pages. The top level material has been broken into the following series of sections for convenience.

INDEX

DEFINITION OF THE ANALYTICAL SIGNAL PATH employed in reading.

DEFINITION OF THE MOTIONS OF THE EYES related to reading.

DESCRIPTION OF THE VISUAL FIELD OF VIEWassociated with reading.

IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT AND SYNTAX related to character-group reading. A brief discussion.

GRAPHIC FORMS ILLUSTRATING THE GROSS OPERATIONAL STEPS associated with reading.

GRAPHIC FORMS ILLUSTRATING THE DETAILED OPERATIONAL STEPS associated with reading.

PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS and MEASURES associated with reading

REFERENCE TO THE CIRCUIT DIAGRAMS AND OPERATIONAL DETAILS OF THE SERVOMECHANISMS OF THE POS used in reading