Mechanism of semantic processing of lexicalized and novel compound words: An eye movement study.

The integration of semantic information of compound words with context is a crucial aspect of reading comprehension. In two eye-tracking experiments, we used two-character and four-character Chinese lexicalized and novel compound words to investigate how Chinese readers integrate semantic information of compound words with contexts in the present study. By manipulating the temporary plausibility of the first constituent through varying the preceding verb, we aimed to investigate how readers process semantic information of compound words during normal reading. A significant plausibility effect pattern in the first constituent region was observed for the four-character novel words, but not for the lexicalized compound words and two-character novel compound words. However, for both two-character and four-character novel compound words, a reverse plausibility effect was found in the second constituent region. This was not the case for lexicalized compound words. These results indicate that novel compound words are integrated with the context in a decompositional manner, while lexicalized compound words are integrated holistically. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Skipping the structural particle de () in reading Chinese: The role of word frequency and sentential fit.

Previous studies suggested that readers were more likely to skip a word when it was previewed by a very-high-frequency word, like "the" in English and "de ()" in Chinese, and they suggested that readers based skipping decisions on parafoveal word information rather than on sentence context. However, in these studies, the very-high-frequency preview word (the or de) was always implausible given the sentence context. It is an open question whether parafoveal word information interacts with sentence context to influence skipping decisions. Therefore, the current experiment orthogonally manipulated the preview information of the target character (identical or de preview) and the plausibility of de (plausible or implausible) to examine this question. The major results indicated that readers were more likely to skip the target character and made longer outgoing saccade length across the boundary in the de preview condition than in the identical preview condition. What is more important, the interaction between the plausibility of de and preview condition was significant: Readers' higher probability of skipping the target character and longer outgoing saccade length in the de preview condition than in the identical preview condition was only significant when de was plausible, suggesting that parafoveal word information and context information can act as a joint constraint on skipping decision in reading Chinese.

Encoding the target or the plausible preview word? The nature of the plausibility preview benefit in reading Chinese.

Previous studies have shown that a plausible preview word can facilitate the processing of a target word as compared to an implausible preview word (a plausibility preview benefit effect) when reading Chinese (Yang, Wang, Tong, & Rayner, 2012; Yang, 2013). Regarding the nature of this effect, it is possible that readers processed the meaning of the plausible preview word and did not actually encode the target word (given that the parafoveal preview word lies close to the fovea). The current experiment examined this possibility with three conditions wherein readers received a preview of a target word that was either (1) identical to the target word (identical preview), (2) a plausible continuation of the pre-target text, but the post-target text in the sentence was incompatible with it (initially plausible preview), or (3) not a plausible continuation of the pre-target text, nor compatible with the post-target text (implausible preview). Gaze durations on target words were longer in the initially plausible condition than the identical condition. Overall, the results showed a typical preview benefit, but also implied that readers did not encode the initially plausible preview. Also, a plausibility preview benefit was replicated: gaze durations were longer with implausible previews than the initially plausible ones. Furthermore, late eye movement measures did not reveal differences between the initially plausible and the implausible preview conditions, which argues against the possibility of misreading the plausible preview word as the target word. In sum, these results suggest that a plausible preview word provides benefit in processing the target word as compared to an implausible preview word, and this benefit is only present in early but not late eye movement measures.

The effect of foveal and parafoveal masks on the eye movements of older and younger readers.

In the present study, we examined foveal and parafoveal processing in older compared with younger readers by using gaze-contingent paradigms with 4 conditions. Older and younger readers read sentences in which the text was either a) presented normally, b) the foveal word was masked as soon as it was fixated, c) all of the words to the left of the fixated word were masked, or d) all of the words to the right of the fixated word were masked. Although older and younger readers both found reading when the fixated word was masked quite difficult, the foveal mask increased sentence reading time more than 3-fold (3.4) for the older readers (in comparison with the control condition in which the sentence was presented normally) compared with the younger readers who took 1.3 times longer to read sentences in the foveal mask condition (in comparison with the control condition). The left and right parafoveal masks did not disrupt reading as severely as the foveal mask, though the right mask was more disruptive than the left mask. Also, there was some indication that the younger readers found the right mask condition relatively more disruptive than the left mask condition.

Eye movements of older and younger readers when reading unspaced text.

Older and younger readers read normal and unspaced text as their eye movements were monitored. A high or low frequency word was embedded in each sentence. Global analyses yielded large effects of spacing with unspaced text leading to much longer reading times for both groups, but the older readers had much more difficulty with unspaced text than younger readers. Local analyses of the target word revealed large main effects due to age, spacing, and frequency. In general, the older readers had more difficulty with the unspaced text than younger readers and some reasons why they did so are suggested.

Evidence for direct control of eye movements during reading.

It is well established that fixation durations during reading vary with processing difficulty, but there are different views on how oculomotor control, visual perception, shifts of attention, and lexical (and higher cognitive) processing are coordinated. Evidence for a one-to-one translation of input delay into saccadic latency would provide a much needed constraint for current theoretical proposals. Here, we tested predictions of such a direct-control perspective using the stimulus-onset delay (SOD) paradigm. Words in sentences were initially masked and, on fixation, were individually unmasked with a delay (0-, 33-, 66-, 99-ms SODs). In Experiment 1, SODs were constant for all words in a sentence; in Experiment 2, SODs were manipulated on target words, while nontargets were unmasked without delay. In accordance with predictions of direct control, nonzero SODs entailed equivalent increases in fixation durations in both experiments. Yet, a population of short fixations pointed to rapid saccades as a consequence of low-level information at nonoptimal viewing positions rather than of lexical processing. Implications of these results for theoretical accounts of oculomotor control are discussed.

Using singular value decomposition to investigate degraded Chinese character recognition: evidence from eye movements during reading.

Previous research indicates that removing initial strokes from Chinese characters makes them harder to read than removing final or internal ones. In the present study, we examined the contribution of important components to character configuration via singular value decomposition. The results indicated that when the least important segments, which did not seriously alter the configuration (contour) of the character, were deleted, subjects read as fast as when no segments were deleted. When the most important segments, which are located in the left side of a character and written first, were deleted, reading speed was greatly slowed. These results suggest that singular value decomposition, which has no information about stroke writing order, can identify the most important strokes for Chinese character identification. Furthermore, they also suggest that contour may be correlated with stroke writing order.

Semantic and plausibility effects on preview benefit during eye fixations in Chinese reading.

The boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) was used to examine whether high level information affects preview benefit during Chinese reading. In two experiments, readers read sentences with a 1-character target word while their eye movements were monitored. In Experiment 1, the semantic relatedness between the target word and the preview word was manipulated so that there were semantically related and unrelated preview words, both of which were not plausible in the sentence context. No significant differences between these two preview conditions were found, indicating no effect of semantic preview. In Experiment 2, we further examined semantic preview effects with plausible preview words. There were four types of previews: identical, related & plausible, unrelated & plausible, and unrelated & implausible. The results revealed a significant effect of plausibility as single fixation and gaze duration on the target region were shorter in the two plausible conditions than in the implausible condition. Moreover, there was some evidence for a semantic preview benefit as single fixation duration on the target region was shorter in the related & plausible condition than the unrelated & plausible condition. Implications of these results for processing of high level information during Chinese reading are discussed.

Is preview benefit from word n + 2 a common effect in reading Chinese? Evidence from eye movements.

Although most studies of reading English (and other alphabetic languages) have indicated that readers do not obtain preview benefit from word n + 2, Yang, Wang, Xu, and Rayner (2009) reported evidence that Chinese readers obtain preview benefit from word n + 2. However, this effect may not be common in Chinese because the character prior to the target word in Yang et al.'s experiment was always a very high frequency function word. In the current experiment, we utilized a relatively low frequency word n + 1 to examine whether an n + 2 preview benefit effect would still exist and failed to find any preview benefit from word n + 2. These results are consistent with a recent study which indicated that foveal load modulates the perceptual span during Chinese reading (Yan, Kliegl, Shu, Pan, & Zhou, 2010). Implications of these results for models of eye movement control are discussed.

Plausibility effects when reading one- and two-character words in Chinese: evidence from eye movements.

Eye movements of Chinese readers were monitored as they read sentences containing a critical character that was either a 1-character word or the initial character of a 2-character word. Due to manipulation of the verb prior to the target word, the 1-character target word (or the first character of the 2-character target word) was either plausible or implausible, as an independent word, at the point at which it appeared, whereas the 2-character word was always plausible. The eye movement data showed that the plausibility manipulation did not exert an influence on the reading of the 2-character word or its component characters. However, plausibility significantly influenced reading of the 1-character target word. These results suggest that processes of semantic integration in reading Chinese are performed at a word level, instead of a character level, and that word segmentation must take place very early in the course of processing.

Eye movements and the perceptual span in silent and oral reading.

Previous research has examined parafoveal processing during silent reading, but little is known about the role of these processes in oral reading. Given that masking parafoveal information slows down silent reading, we asked whether a similar effect also occurs in oral reading. To investigate the role of parafoveal processing in silent and oral reading, we manipulated the parafoveal information available to readers by changing the size of a gaze-contingent moving window. Participants read silently and orally in a one-word window and a three-word window condition as we monitored their eye movements. The lack of parafoveal information slowed reading speed in both oral and silent reading. However, the effects of parafoveal information were larger in silent reading than in oral reading, because of different effects of preview information on both when the eyes move and how often. Parafoveal information benefitted silent reading for faster readers more than for slower readers.

Eye movements of older and younger readers when reading disappearing text.

Older and younger readers read sentences in which target words were masked 40 to 60 ms after fixation onset. Masking only the target word caused more disruption than did masking each word in the sentence, and this effect was stronger for the younger readers than for the older readers. Although older readers had longer eye fixations than did younger readers, the results indicated that the masking effect was comparable for the 2 groups. However, for both groups, how long the eyes remained in place was strongly influenced by the frequency of the fixated word (even though it had been rapidly replaced by the mask and was no longer there when the eyes did move). This is compelling evidence that for both older and younger readers, cognitive/lexical processing has a very strong influence on when the eyes move in reading.

Preview benefit during eye fixations in reading for older and younger readers.

Older and younger readers read sentences as their eye movements were recorded, and the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) was used to present either a valid or an invalid parafoveal preview of a target word. During the saccade to the target word, the preview word changed to the target word. For early measures of processing time (first fixation duration and single fixation duration), the standard preview benefit effect (shorter fixation times on the target word with a valid preview than an invalid preview) was obtained for both older and younger readers. However, for gaze duration and go-past time, the preview benefit was somewhat attenuated in the older readers in comparison to the younger readers, suggesting that on some fixations older readers obtain less preview benefit from the word to the right of fixation.

The time course of word frequency and case alternation effects on fixation times in reading: evidence for lexical control of eye movements.

Participants' eye movements were monitored while they read sentences in which high-frequency and low-frequency target words were presented either in normal font (e.g., account) or case alternated (e.g., aCcOuNt). The influence of the word frequency and case alternation manipulations on fixation times was examined. Although both manipulations had comparable effects on standard first-pass fixation measures, word frequency, but not case alternation was found to influence the duration of the first fixation in trials with multiple first-pass fixations. Assuming that lexical processing is more often incomplete at the termination of the first in multiple first-pass fixations than at the end of single first-pass fixations, the present findings provide strong evidence for an influence of word frequency on early lexical processing. Importantly, such a demonstration of a fast acting influence of a lexical variable on fixation times satisfies a critical prerequisite for establishing lexical control of eye movements in reading.

The time course of semantic and syntactic processing in Chinese sentence comprehension: evidence from eye movements.

In the present study, we examined the time course of semantic and syntactic processing when Chinese is read. Readers' eye movements were monitored, and the relation between a single-character critical word and the sentence context was manipulated such that three kinds of sentences were developed: (1) congruent, (2) those with a semantic violation, and (3) those with both a semantic and a syntactic violation. The eye movement data showed that the first-pass reading times were significantly longer for the target region in the two violation conditions than in the congruent condition. Moreover, the semantic+syntactic violation caused more severe disruption than did the pure semantic violation, as reflected by longer first-pass reading times for the target region and by longer go-past times for the target region and posttarget region in the former than in the latter condition. These results suggest that the effects of, at least, a semantic violation can be detected immediately by Chinese readers and that the processing of syntactic and semantic information is distinct in both first-pass and second-pass reading.

Eye movements and the perceptual span in older and younger readers.

The size of the perceptual span (or the span of effective vision) in older readers was examined with the moving window paradigm (G. W. McConkie & K. Rayner, 1975). Two experiments demonstrated that older readers have a smaller and more symmetric span than that of younger readers. These 2 characteristics (smaller and more symmetric span) of older readers may be a consequence of their less efficient processing of nonfoveal information, which results in a riskier reading strategy.

Do Chinese readers obtain preview benefit from word n + 2? Evidence from eye movements.

The boundary paradigm (K. Rayner, 1975) was used to determine the extent to which Chinese readers obtain information from the right of fixation during reading. As characters are the basic visual unit in written Chinese, they were used as targets in Experiment 1 to examine whether readers obtain preview information from character n + 1 and character n + 2. The results from Experiment 1 suggest they do. In Experiment 2, 2-character target words were used to determine whether readers obtain preview information from word n + 2 as well as word n + 1. Robust preview effects were obtained for word n + 1. There was also evidence from gaze duration (but not first fixation duration), suggesting preview effects for word n + 2. Moreover, there was evidence for parafoveal-on-foveal effects in Chinese reading in both experiments. Implications of these results for models of eye movement control are discussed.

Eye movements when looking at unusual/weird scenes: are there cultural differences?

Recent studies have suggested that eye movement patterns while viewing scenes differ for people from different cultural backgrounds and that these differences in how scenes are viewed are due to differences in the prioritization of information (background or foreground). The current study examined whether there are cultural differences in how quickly eye movements are drawn to highly unusual aspects of a scene. American and Chinese viewers examined photographic scenes while performing a preference rating task. For each scene, participants were presented with either a normal or an unusual/weird version. Even though there were differences between the normal and weird versions of the scenes, there was no evidence of any cultural differences while viewing either scene type. The present study, along with other recent reports, raises doubts about the notion that cultural differences can influence oculomotor control in scene perception.

Parafoveal processing in reading: Manipulating n + 1 and n + 2 previews simultaneously.

The boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) with a novel preview manipulation was used to examine the extent of parafoveal processing of words to the right of fixation. Words n + 1 and n + 2 had either correct or incorrect previews prior to fixation (prior to crossing the boundary location). In addition, the manipulation utilized either a high or low frequency word in word n + 1 location on the assumption that it would be more likely that n + 2 preview effects could be obtained when word n + 1 was high frequency. The primary findings were that there was no evidence for a preview benefit for word n + 2 and no evidence for parafoveal-on-foveal effects when word n + 1 is at least four letters long. We discuss implications for models of eye-movement control in reading.