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Visual Stress Research BackgroundViSS was developed as a result of a three-year research programme on visual stress conducted in the Department of Psychology, at the University of Hull. The following summarises the highlights of the research. To access the abstracts of published and submitted papers connected with this research programme, click on the links. The original design work and preliminary research was carried out by Dr Chris Singleton. Early empirical work concentrated on piloting prototype versions of a visual search task that might serve as a useful screening device for visual stress. Taylor (unpublished) reported on a study carried out in 2004 in which an unselected sample of 80 children aged 9-11 were tested using Intuitive Overlays, Wilkins Rate of Reading Test (WRRT), and the Neale Analysis of Reading (NARA). The results were compared with performance on a computerised visual search task. Children who were found to have high susceptibility to visual stress on the computerised visual search task had significantly slower reading speeds than other children but otherwise there were no significant differences between groups on NARA. The children with high susceptibility to visual stress on the computerised visual search task were more likely to choose a coloured overlay, and use of the chosen overlay caused a significant improvement in reading speed. The outcome of this study suggested that the computerised visual search task would be a suitable basis for screening for visual stress. Following on from Taylor's study, Henderson and Singleton (submitted) carried out a study of 60 unselected primary school children aged 9-10, who were tested with an improved version of the computerised visual search task. The results suggest that visual search task may provide a more appropriate and objective method for classification of visual stress in children, and various theoretical explanations for this phenomenon were discussed. Later work focussed on refining the computerised visual search task and looking at its applicability in cases of dyslexia. Singleton and Henderson (submitted-a) used ViSS with two unselected samples: 50 children aged 7-11 years and 67 students aged 11-17. The results confirmed that primary and secondary school children who were classified by ViSS as having high susceptibility to visual stress had larger percent increases in reading rate with an overlay compared to those with low visual stress. Two studies in the programme have examined relationships between visual stress and dyslexia. Using the Intuitive Colorimeter, Singleton and Trotter (2005) reported a possible link between dyslexia and visual stress in university students, and Singleton and Henderson (submitted-b) compared 22 children aged 7-14 who had received a formal diagnosis of dyslexia from an educational psychologist with an age-matched control group of 22 normal readers. Compared to reading age controls, dyslexic children were found to have significantly higher susceptibility to visual stress on ViSS, significantly larger percent increases in reading rate with an overlay, and significantly higher critical and non-critical symptoms of visual stress. Extrapolated to unselected population samples, the data also suggest that visual stress is more likely to be found in people with dyslexia than in people who do not have dyslexia and therefore it is particularly important that children with dyslexia are screened for visual stress. For a general review of visual factors in reading, see Singleton, C. H. & Henderson, L-M. (in press) References
Henderson, L-M. & Singleton, C.H. (submitted)
Singleton, C. H. & Henderson, L-M. (in press)
Singleton, C. H. & Henderson, L-M. (submitted-a)
Singleton, C. H. & Henderson, L-M. (submitted-b)
Singleton, C. H. & Trotter, S.J. (2005)
Taylor, C. A. (unpublished)
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