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The vision or fixation span is the length of a word or words a reader can take in or recognize within one fixation. This is a fixed span usually enough to take in a word at a time.
Reading research indicates that the human's fixation span is around five printed letters long for each fixation. A reader can see a five letter word, but will not be able to understand a following word of five letters at the same time.
Beyond the fixation span, an experienced reader can use some cues to help them to read and a reader may recognise the length of words so that they can automatically judge the best place for the next fixation.
It has been suggested, primarily through popular psychology that the fixation span can be stretched through training meta guiding to take in as much as a line for the purpose of skimming or speed reading. This suggestion has found to be false, which goes some way to explain why skimming results in a severely reduced comprehension rate in comparison to normal reading (rauding).
Visionspan or perceptual span is the angular span (vertically and horizontally), within which the human eye has sharp enough vision to read text.
The visual field of the human eye spans approximately 120 degrees of arc.
The field of view that is observed with sufficient resolution to read text typically spans about 6 degrees of arc, which is wide enough to allow a clear view of about five words in a row when printed text at ordinary size is held about 50 centimeters from the eyes.
Focal vision is primarily responsible for object recognition, and ambient vision is primarily responsible for spatial orientation.
Focal vision is limited to the central two degrees of vision (i.e., the fovea) and is primarily a conscious function.
Untrained subjects use central focus but not horizontal peripheral visionspan during reading, foregoing up to 50% of their words per fixation (the number of words that can be perceived and "read" in each fixation).
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