Résumé
We recorded the eye movements of adults reading aloud short (four digit) and long (eight to 11 digit) Arabic
numerals compared to matched-in-length words and pseudowords. We presented each item in isolation, at the
center of the screen. Participants read each item aloud at their pace, and then pressed the spacebar to display the
next item. Reading accuracy was 99 %. Results showed that adults make 2.5 times more fixations when reading
short numerals compared to short words, and up to 7 times more fixations when reading long numerals with
respect to long words. Similarly, adults make 3 times more saccades when reading short numerals compared to
short words, and up to 9 times more saccades when reading long numerals with respect to long words. Fixation
duration and saccade amplitude stay almost the same when reading short numerals with respect to short words.
However, fixation duration increases by ~50 ms when reading long numerals (~300 ms) with respect to long
words (~250 ms), and saccade amplitude decreases up to 0.83 characters when reading long numerals with
respect to long words. The pattern of findings for long numerals—more and shorter saccades as well as more and
longer fixations—shows the extent to which reading long Arabic numerals is a cognitively costly task. Within the
phonographic writing system, this pattern of eye movements stands for the use of the sublexical print-to-sound
correspondence rules. The data highlight that reading large numerals is an unautomatized activity and that
Arabic numerals must be converted into their oral form by a step-by-step process even by expert readers.