Orthographic versus semantic matching in visual search for words within lists.

Abstract

An eye-tracking experiment was performed to assess the influence of orthographic and semantic distractor words on visual search for words within lists. The target word (e.g., "raven") was either shown to participants before the search (literal search) or defined by its semantic category (e.g., "bird", categorical search). In both cases, the type of words included in the list affected visual search times and eye movement patterns. In the literal condition, the presence of orthographic distractors sharing initial and final letters with the target word strongly increased search times. Indeed, the orthographic distractors attracted participants' gaze and were fixated for longer times than other words in the list. The presence of semantic distractors related to the target word also increased search times, which suggests that significant automatic semantic processing of nontarget words took place. In the categorical condition, semantic distractors were expected to have a greater impact on the search task. As expected, the presence in the list of semantic associates of the target word led to target selection errors. However, semantic distractors did not significantly increase search times any more, whereas orthographic distractors still did. Hence, the visual characteristics of nontarget words can be strong predictors of the efficiency of visual search even when the exact target word is unknown. The respective impacts of orthographic and semantic distractors depended more on the characteristics of lists than on the nature of the search task.

Task-dependent modulation of word processing mechanisms during modified visual search tasks

“…The EEG findings provided additional information related to the behavioral data obtained in previous eye-tracking results (Dampuré et al, 2014;Léger et al, 2012) and showed how the perceptual and semantic characteristics of words are used to select and reject distractors depending on the task.…”

Searching for a word in Chinese text: insights from eye movement behaviour

“…It would also be valuable for further research to examine, for both alphabetic and logographic languages, the factors that modulate eye movement behaviour during target word search, for example, the effect of target and distractor word characteristics (Dampure et al, 2016;Léger et al, 2012;Shen & Reingold, 2001;Smith, Lott, & Cronnell, 1969;Spragins et al, 1976). Research with non-linguistic stimuli indicates that eye movement behaviour is affected by the presence of distractors sharing physical characteristics with the target (Findlay, 1997).…”

“…Scialfa, Caird, Connolly, & Cosmescu, 1998). Some types of search, such as search for relevant topics (White, Warrington, McGowan, & Paterson, 2015), related words (Léger, Rouet, Ros, &Vibert, 2012) or answers to questions (Cauchard, Eyrolle, Cellier, & Hyona, 2010;Klusewitz & Lorch, 2000) necessarily involve linguistic processing of the text. In contrast, the present study focuses on the mechanisms underlying the process of searching for a specific target word, which may be achieved with only superficial processing of the text.…”

“…A few studies have previously examined eye movement behaviour during search for specific target words within meaningful text in English (Pollatsek, Raney, LaGasse, & TARGET WORD SEARCH IN CHINESE TEXT 4 Rayner, 1993;Rayner & Fischer, 1996;Rayner & Raney, 1996;Spragins, Lefton, & Fisher, 1976). Other studies have examined eye movements during search for words within lists or within a sequence of presented words (Dampuré, Ros, Rouet, & Vibert, 2012;Léger et al, 2012;Ojanpää, Näsänen, & Kojo, 2002). A few previous studies have examined eye movement behaviour during search for a Chinese character, both within arrays of Chinese characters (Goonetilleke, Lau, & Smith, 2002;Rayner, Li, Williams, Cave, & Well, 2007;Shen & Reingold, 2001; see also Zhou, Mo, Zhang, & Ding, 2017) and within passages of Chinese text, counting occurrences of a particular character (Rayner et al, 2007;Yu, Zhang, Priest, Reichle, & Sheridan, 2018).…”

Meaning-based attentional guidance as a function of foveal and task-related cognitive loads

“…Despite the extension of the models of visual search to words has been questioned (for extended discussions see Léger, Ros, Rouet, & Vibert, 2012;Dampuré, Ros, Rouet, & Vibert, 2014), visual search for verbal material has been far less studied even though it is one of the most practiced activity on the web (Hsieh-Yee, 2001) and would be even more practiced than reading for comprehension (Rouet, 2006). Consequently, few is known in this activity about the attentional guidance mechanisms and the corresponding (semantic) processing of words locating in parafovea, i.e.…”