A meta‐analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of eye movements and visual word reading

INTRODUCTION: The pattern of eye movements during reading is substantially correlated with linguistic factors. While there have been a large number of studies on the neural mechanisms of eye movements and word reading separately, a limited number of studies have compared the activation patterns of these two processes and discussed the associations of their corresponding brain regions within the framework of naturalistic reading. METHODS: This study conducted a meta‐analysis of the existing functional magnetic resonance imaging literature on prosaccades and visual word reading using the activation likelihood estimation algorithm. RESULTS: Our main finding was that, although prosaccades and word reading mainly activated dorsal and ventral brain areas, respectively, they both activated the left precentral gyrus (PreCG), left superior parietal lobe, right PreCG, right lingual gyrus, and bilateral medial frontal gyrus. CONCLUSION: These findings provide new insights into cognitive processes involved with naturalistic reading, which requires both eye movements and word reading.