Tim Slattery

Dr Tim Slattery

  • Principal Academic
  • None
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Biography

I earned my BSc in Psychology with honours from the University of Buffalo in 1996. After graduation I spent 4 years working in a residential treatment centre for juvenile offenders in New York. This arduous work led me to the realisation that I desired a career in scientific research. So, in 2001 I embarked on my PhD in Cognitive Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Pollatsek at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where I also earned a minor in Quantitative Analysis. During my PhD studies, I also had the pleasure of completing a summer internship program at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View California where I worked under the supervision of Dr. Cynthia Null. After earning my PhD, I accepted a Post-Doc position at the University of California at San Diego with Keith Rayner in 2007, where I further honed my skills as an eye movement researcher. In 2011 I accepted a post as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Alabama establishing a new Psycholinguistics lab there and further developing my teaching abilities...

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Research

In my research, I am using eye-tracking to study how people control their eyes during reading. I am also interested in auditory distraction, multi-tasking, academic distraction, and education psychology. More broadly, I also have an interest in mathematical models of cognition, evidence synthesis, statistical and measurement theory, and open science and education.

My research focuses primarily on eye movements during reading, and I am interested in advancing the field of psycholinguistics through the implementation and testing of computational models. I am particularly interested in the processing of abbreviations such as textisms and acronyms as they provide unique opportunities to explore the processing of orthographic, phonological, and semantic representations. I have also been exploring how differences in reading perspective (what readers are interested in) influence reading comprehension (including the cross cultural influences that often drive differences in perspective). Efficient reading requires a number of complex cognitive processes operating in harmony. To that effect, much of my research has focused on the interplay between bottom-up (font) and top-down (language) characteristics influence foveal and parafoveal processing. Below are some of my current projects:

Letter and word spacing and dyslexia:

Working with Julie Kirkby on an adult reading study comparing the eye movements of dyslexic readers with those of non-dyslexic readers while reading texts varying in horizontal letter and word spacing.

Latent semantic analysis and word predictability in reading:

Obtained GA small grant funding to develop psycholinguistic stimuli for an innovative study into human lexical prediction during reading.

Individual differences in reading ability: Working with Mark Yates from the University of South Alabama to investigate various skill related to reading (e.g...

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Favourites

  • Parker, A.J. and Slattery, T.J., 2019. Word Frequency, Predictability, and Return-Sweep Saccades: Towards the Modeling of Eye Movements During Paragraph Reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
  • Slattery, T.J. and Parker, A.J., 2019. Return sweeps in reading: Processing implications of undersweep-fixations. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
  • Slattery, T.J. and Vasilev, M.R., 2019. An eye-movement exploration into return-sweep targeting during reading. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 81 (5), 1197-1203.
  • Yates, M. and Slattery, T.J., 2019. Individual differences in spelling ability influence phonological processing during visual word recognition. Cognition, 187, 139-149.
  • Parker, A.J., Slattery, T.J. and Kirkby, J.A., 2019. Return-sweep saccades during reading in adults and children. Vision Research, 155, 35-43.
  • Slattery, T.J., Yates, M. and Angele, B., 2016. Interword and interletter spacing effects during reading revisited: Interactions with word and font characteristics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 22 (4), 406-422.
  • Angele, B., Slattery, T.J. and Rayner, K., 2016. Two stages of parafoveal processing during reading: Evidence from a display change detection task. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 23 (4), 1241-1249.
  • Slattery, T.J., 2016. Eye movements: From psycholinguistics to font design. Digital Fonts and Reading. 54-78.
  • Angele, B., Schotter, E.R., Slattery, T.J., Tenenbaum, T.L., Bicknell, K. and Rayner, K., 2015. Do successor effects in reading reflect lexical parafoveal processing? Evidence from corpus-based and experimental eye movement data. Journal of Memory and Language, 79-80, 76-96.
  • Slattery, T.J., Sturt, P., Christianson, K., Yoshida, M. and Ferreira, F., 2013. Lingering misinterpretations of garden path sentences arise from competing syntactic representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 69 (2), 104-120.
  • Slattery, T.J. and Rayner, K., 2013. Effects of intraword and interword spacing on eye movements during reading: Exploring the optimal use of space in a line of text. Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, 75 (6), 1275-1292.
  • Slattery, T.J., Staub, A. and Rayner, K., 2012. Saccade launch site as a predictor of fixation durations in reading: Comments on Hand, Miellet, O'Donnell, and Sereno (2010). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38 (1), 251-261.
  • Bélanger, N.N., Slattery, T.J., Mayberry, R.I. and Rayner, K., 2012. Skilled Deaf Readers Have an Enhanced Perceptual Span in Reading. Psychological Science, 23 (7), 816-823.
  • Slattery, T.J., Angele, B. and Rayner, K., 2011. Eye Movements and Display Change Detection During Reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37 (6), 1924-1938.
  • Gollan, T.H., Slattery, T.J., Goldenberg, D., Van Assche, E., Duyck, W. and Rayner, K., 2011. Frequency Drives Lexical Access in Reading but Not in Speaking: The Frequency-Lag Hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140 (2), 186-209.
  • Rayner, K., Slattery, T.J., Drieghe, D. and Liversedge, S.P., 2011. Eye Movements and Word Skipping During Reading: Effects of Word Length and Predictability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37 (2), 514-528.
  • Slattery, T.J. and Rayner, K., 2010. The influence of text legibility on eye movements during reading. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24 (8), 1129-1148.
  • Levy, R., Bicknell, K., Slattery, T. and Rayner, K., 2009. Eye movement evidence that readers maintain and act on uncertainty about past linguistic input. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106 (50), 21086-21090.
  • Slattery, T.J., 2009. Word Misperception, the Neighbor Frequency Effect, and the Role of Sentence Context: Evidence From Eye Movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35 (6), 1969-1975.
  • Angele, B., Slattery, T.J., Yang, J., Kliegl, R. and Rayner, K., 2008. Parafoveal processing in reading: Manipulating n + 1 and n + 2 previews simultaneously. Visual Cognition, 16 (6), 697-707.
  • Rayner, K., Pollatsek, A., Drieghe, D., Slattery, T.J. and Reichle, E.D., 2007. Tracking the Mind During Reading Via Eye Movements: Comments on Kliegl, Nuthmann, and Engbert (2006). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136 (3), 520-529.
  • Rayner, K., Chace, K.H., Slattery, T.J. and Ashby, J., 2006. Eye movements as reflections of comprehension processes in reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10 (3), 241-255.

Journal Articles

Chapters

Conferences

  • Segen, V., Avraamides, M., Slattery, T. and Wiener, J., 2019. Age-related differences in the use of distal landmarks during object-location encoding. I-PERCEPTION, 10, 17.
  • Angele, B., Schotter, E.R., Slattery, T.J., Chaloukian, T.L., Bicknell, K. and Rayner, K., 2014. Do successor effects in reading reflect parafoveal processing? Evidence from corpus-based and experimental eye-movement data. In: Newcastle Meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) 16-18 July 2014 Newcastle.

Others

PhD Students

  • Adam Parker. Eye movements and reading at sentence and line boundaries: exploring wrap-up and return-sweep effects.

Profile of Teaching UG

  • Eye Tracking and Cognition
  • Cognition and Language
  • Project Unit

Invited Lectures

  • Horizontal Text Spacing Effects in Reading, University of Leicester, 03 Dec 2015 more
  • Horizontal Text Spacing Effects in Reading, University of Southampton, 04 Nov 2015 more

Grants

  • Development of oculomotor control and reading ability (Microsoft, 21 Jan 2019). Awarded
  • Microsoft reading research knowledge exchange (Microsoft, 06 Jun 2017). Awarded
  • Understanding abbreviations: How Bavarian is a BMW? (British Academy / Leverhulme, 01 May 2017). Awarded
  • Word predictability effects in reading: New developments and directions (Bournemouth University RKEO GA small grants, 01 Jun 2016). Completed
  • Eye movements and reading at sentence and line boundaries: exploring wrap-up and return-sweep effects (Microsoft, 25 Jan 2016). In Progress
  • Summer professional development award (University of South Alabama, 20 May 2014). Completed
  • Text legibility factors in eye movements and reading (Microsoft, 01 Jun 2009). Completed
  • Text Legibility: ClearType and eye movements during reading (Microsoft, 01 Jul 2006). Completed

External Responsibilities

  • University of Southampton, External examiner PhD. Viva (2016)

Internal Responsibilities

  • member, Visual Cognition Cluster
  • Psychology Department Output Champion, REF Outputs sub-committee
  • Member, Psychology Department Research Committee

Journal Reviewing/Refereeing

  • Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Anonymous peer review, 11 Jul 2016
  • Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Anonymous peer review, 21 Apr 2016
  • Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Anonymous peer review, 03 Dec 2015
  • Cognitive Psychology, Anonymous peer review, 17 Aug 2015

Public Engagement & Outreach Activities

  • Bournemouth University Active Vision Workshop (June 2016) (19 Jul 2016-20 Jul 2016)
  • Typography and Eyemovements (14 Jun 2016)
  • Eye movements, letter spacing, and ClearType. (16 Jun 2006-18 Jun 2006)

Conference Presentations

  • 56th Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Eye movements and the effect of word frequency on display change detection during reading., 19 Nov 2015, Chicago, IL, USA
  • 18th European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM), Opening the door on CLOZE, 16 Aug 2015, University of Vienna
  • 18th European Conference on Eye Movements, Eye movements and the effect of word frequency on display change detection during reading, 16 Aug 2015, Vienna, Austria
  • 55th Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, . Do successor effects in reading reflect parafoveal processing? Evidence from corpus-based and experimental eye-movement data, 20 Nov 2014, Long Beach, CA, USA
  • Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Cognitive bias and the acquired capability for suicide., 20 Nov 2014, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Newcastle Meeting, Do successor effects in reading reflect parafoveal processing? Evidence from corpus-based and experimental eye-movement data, 16 Jul 2014, Newcastle
  • South Eastern Psychological Association, Using technology to measure the hidden side of learning., 05 Mar 2014, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
  • 42nd Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, A psycholinguistic analysis of the Word Memory Test: Item level characteristics and variability., 12 Feb 2014, Seattle, Washington, USA
  • Society for Teaching of Psychology, Evidence based teaching and electronic tracking of course engagement., 11 Oct 2013, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
  • 17th European Conference on Eye Movements, The effect of high- and low-frequency previews and sentential fit on word skipping, 11 Aug 2013, Lund, Sweden
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Bilingual interlingual homograph processing: The relative influences of semantic and language contexts., 15 Nov 2012, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  • Second Language Research Forum, The relative influences of semantic context and language context on bilinguals reading interlingual homographs., 18 Oct 2012, Pittsburg Pennsylvania, USA
  • South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning, Electronic Measurement of learning strategies and academic alchemy: Can an ordinary student be transmuted into a spectacular student?, 14 May 2012, Mobile, Alabama, USA
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: The frequency-lag hypothesis., 03 Nov 2011, Seattle Washington, USA
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Skilled deaf readers have an enhanced perceptual span in reading., 03 Nov 2011, Seattle Washington, USA
  • 24th Annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing, Word re-recognition occurs during second pass reading: Evidence from eye movements., 24 Mar 2011, Stanford, California, USA
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Eye movements and word skipping during reading: Effects of word length and predictability., 11 Nov 2010, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Eye Movements during the reading of degraded text., 11 Nov 2010, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
  • KogWis, ROC analysis of display change detections during text reading., 03 Oct 2010, Potsdam Germany
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Lingering garden-path effects on the reading of subsequent text., 19 Nov 2009, Boston, Massachusetts
  • 15th European Conference on Eye Movements, Detection of display changes in text reading., 23 Aug 2009, Southampton, UK.
  • 15th European Conference on Eye Movements, Neighbor effects and the L2 stage of the EZ Reader model., 23 Aug 2009, Southampton, UK
  • 15th European Conference on Eye Movements, Eye movements and parafoveal processing in Chinese reading., 23 Aug 2009, Southampton, UK
  • 22nd annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing, Readers maintain and act on uncertainty about past linguistic input: Evidence from eye movements., 05 Mar 2009, Davis, California, USA
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, The neighbor frequency effect in English: Is there a parallel with lexical ambiguity?, 15 Nov 2007, Long Beach, California, USA
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Rereading and eye movements., 10 Nov 2005, Toronto, Canada
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, When good enough parsing is not good enough: Error signals and Reanalysis., 10 Nov 2005, Toronto, Canada
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, The role of attention in processing rotary motion across fixations., 10 Nov 2005, Toronto, Canada
  • 13th European Conference on Eye Movements, How clear is ClearType., 14 Aug 2005, Bern, Switzerland
  • Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Phonological codes assessed via acronym reading: Evidence from eye movements., 18 Nov 2004, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
  • 12th European Conference on Eye Movements, The effect of the frequencies of three consecutive content words on eye movements during reading., 20 Aug 2003, Dundee, Scotland

Attended Training

  • Doctoral Supervision: New Supervisors programme, 25 May 2016
  • Grant Writing Workshop, 25 Nov 2015

Honours

  • Junior faculty award for research and scholarship (University of South Alabama, College of Arts and Sciences, 2014)
  • Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Applied and Basic Cognition and Development Training Program, Grant MH16745 (National Institute of Mental Health USA, 2006)
  • Young Scientist Award, Poster Competition (European Conference on Eye Movements, 2003)

Memberships

  • Psychonomic Society, Fellow,