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

Abstract

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.

What is the most plausible account of the role of parafoveal processing in reading?

“…However, there was no benefit from semantic relatedness, and the two factors did not interact, that is, the benefit to reading the target psycho , from the synonym preview insane was equivalent to that for the plausible but semantically unrelated preview modest. This finding was consistent with plausibility preview effects observed in Chinese (Yang, Wang, Tong, & Rayner, ; Yang, Li, Wang, Slattery, & Rayner, ) that had previously been assumed to be specific to its logographic writing system. Converging evidence for the plausibility preview effect in English was provided by Schotter and Jia () who found that synonym, antonym, and plausible unrelated previews all yielded benefits on first‐pass reading relative to implausible previews.…”

Parafoveal preview benefit in sentence reading: Independent effects of plausibility and orthographic relatedness

“…Consistent with previous evidence of a plausibility preview benefit (Schotter & Jia, 2016;Yang et al, 2014), the effect did not extend to total fixation duration because the early benefit for plausible previews was counteracted by a higher rate of regressions to the target after a plausible than after an implausible preview, even though the plausible previews were always compatible with the posttarget text. Thus, plausible previews yield a trade-off between shorter fixation durations during first-pass reading, but longer second-pass reading.…”

“…The results showed that, when the plausibility of the preview word in the sentence was controlled, no effect of preview-target semantic relatedness on fixation durations emerged. However, preview plausibility had a strong facilitative effect on firstpass reading measures of the target word (see also Schotter & Jia, 2016;Yang, Li, Wang, Slattery, & Rayner, 2014). These data demonstrate that preview benefit depends, in part, on the compatibility of the preview with the context.…”

Reversed preview benefit effects: Forced fixations emphasize the importance of parafoveal vision for efficient reading.

“…However, it may be possible (and the comparison between the foveal and parafoveal disappearing text studies suggests) that in some cases parafoveal information itself is used for reading, potentially without the involvement of or need for foveal information. Indeed, recent research using the boundary paradigm has found evidence for preview benefit from a preview word that was completely unrelated to the target word, so long as the preview itself was a sensible word in the preceding sentence context (Schotter & Jia, 2016; Veldre & Andrews, 2016; Yang, Li, Wang, Slattery, & Rayner, 2014; Yang, Wang, Tong, & Rayner, 2012). …”