Saccade
Through Your Eyes
When we read, our eyes alternate between saccades, rapid movement from one part of the text to another, and fixations, where the cognitive uptake of the text is occurring. Only, as with so much else in science, it isn’t quite that simple. There is no clear understanding of why the brain decides it will saccade to the next word or phrase, and saccades may occur so rapidly in a fast reader they become almost instantaneous. What is clear is the connection between the ability to successfully saccade and cognitive abilities. Loss of the reading comprehension, due in part to inability to focus on words and comprehend them as the eye wanders randomly, is a determination of dementia and other cognitive disorders.
Reading, as I think most of us understand even when we haven’t stopped to think about it, improves with practice. Speed isn’t necessarily the factor here - you don’t need to read quickly to comprehend well, and contra, you don’t necessarily lose comprehension if you are a very fast reader. This is characteristic to every reader, and there are connections between difficulty in sustaining saccadic eye movement and ADHD. Dyslexics find it sometimes easier to read ‘floating’ or moving text than they do fixed text on a screen or page, due to the smooth eye movements needed to follow the drift of the text. There are many ways to read, and exploring the options is a very good thing. Reading is the whetstone of the mind.
The eye is controlled by the brain, harnessing tiny ocular muscles to control the light allowed entrance to the eye, and the direction of that focal lens, a wonderful system. Like any other muscles, the eyes should be exercised. Maintaining a reading habit not only gives the mind sharpness, but helps the eyes as well. You should be reading! And I can hear you thinking so loud it echoes off the screen, “I don’t have time…!” You do. You must. It is a rare person who has not even a few moments to spare from their daily obligations. If you find it difficult to focus on reading, that should be a sign to you that you will need to rebuild the ability to saccade. If we don’t use the eyes, we lose the ability to fixate, to saccade smoothly, but this can be regained.
There has been a great deal of buzzing online recently about boys (and then, to men as they grow) not reading. Many are concerned, but some are more blasé about it. ‘What is the big deal?’ they seem to ask. The ability to read isn’t an easy discipline to regain, and a lifetime without it takes a toll on reasoning skills, the ability to learn empathy with others, contact on thinking outside your own sphere and last but certainly not least, your own imagination. Reading, far more than video, sparks your imagination when it comes to fiction, to fill in the details the author left for you to work in on your own, in a pleasant collaboration. Boys who give up reading because there is nothing that interests them are impoverished for it. We need more books for them, for their minds and their eyes and their souls to be nourished by reading.
Here’s my challenge to you, then. If you don’t already read every day, try in this coming month. Set a timer, make a quiet space, and get a book in front of your eyes. Practice your saccades and fixations. Practice your focus. It will help if you choose something pleasant to read at first, which you enjoy. Read for ten or fifteen minutes a day, at least. I think you will find that you can make that a longer interval in time, if you struggle with reading to begin with. If, like me, you tend to be lost in the book and don’t have time to spend hours with it, use the timer’s sound as a cue to put it down and pick up the next task. I suspect you’ll find yourself scheduling reading time as a reward, before you know it! Quiet time with a book, a cosy place to sit, perhaps some music, and a cat if you have one. Bliss. Your brain will thank you.
Our lives become a hectic whirl the further we get from childhood, it seems. The eye’s saccadic movements have nothing on our daily schedules. Remember, though: the brain doesn’t retain any information during saccade. It’s during fixation, when the eye is at rest, when it takes up what is on the page (or, yes, screen) and comprehends it. If we don’t slow down to a standstill once in a while, we stop learning. Our minds stiffen and age. If you value your brain, give it what it needs. Read.
Interestingly enough, saccades and fixations almost make reading sound like a kind of video game: the saccades mark items you wish to collect, and then the fixations are the pauses where those items are collected and added to your inventory.
I was a voracious reader as a child and teen. Still a good reader in my 20's and 30's. But, I started spending so much time reading on the computer, and there were fewer and fewer books that I WANTED to read, that reading daily or weekly or monthly...fell away. I fight myself with time - I could be...writing my own stuff, cleaning, training dogs, doing art, cooking....instead of "wasting time" reading. (Yes, I know, that's why it's in quotes!) And there are still very few books that I find interesting. (Maybe it's bad blurbs?) even if I read a chapter. (Maybe it's from reading slush for so long?) And maybe it's because I have so much trouble with my sight and reading makes it worse. And I DESPISE audio books, so that's not an answer for me. I know that I DO need to read more, even if it's going back to old books that I loved the first time around, just to lubricate the brain gears again. I used to be a speed reader (with full comprehension), but that has slipped away, as well.
Ah, thanks for the poking reminder (is that a burr under my saddle?) that reading is important, too.