Parallel semantic processing in reading revisited: effects of translation equivalents in bilingual readers

Snell, Joshua; Declerck, Mathieu; Grainger, Jonathan

doi:10.1080/23273798.2017.1392583

Cited by 44 publications

(58 citation statements)

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“…Influences from word n + 1 on n would provide stronger evidence for parallelism, as n + 1 could have an impact on n only if it were processed simultaneously. While such effects are not found at levels of semantic processing [12,14,15] (which, as we argue in this Opinion article, is for good reason), they are consistently found at the level of letter processing, with words being recognized faster when followed by an orthographically related word than an unrelated word [10][11][12][13]18].…”

Section: Box 2 Lessons From Research On Parafoveal Processingmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…This proved to be true. In experiments where readers made semantic or syntactic categorization decisions about central target words, response times were influenced by respectively the semantic or the syntactic congruency of flanking words, even though targets and flanking words were presented simultaneously for only 170 ms [14,15]. Crucially, this is shorter than the average time required to recognize a single word [16], indicating that the flanking words were processed during rather than after target processing.…”

Section: Trends In Cognitive Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The second assumption has been that if words are processed in parallel, information should be spatially integrated across words, such that readers will more rapidly recognize certain word characteristics (e.g., letters, sounds, meaning) if those characteristics are shared with surrounding words [10][11][12][13][14][15]. As it turns out, readers do integrate letter information across words [10][11][12][13][14][15], but higher-level integration effects (e.g., the word 'dog' being recognized faster when followed by 'cat' than when followed by an unrelated word) have remained largely elusive [12][13][14][15]. This has led researchers to believe that parallel processing may occur at sublexical levels, but that lexical access nonetheless occurs serially.…”

Section: (3) Ambiguity Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But this conclusion is not warranted. Parallel processing may well proceed without integrating high-level information across words [5,14,15]. The rationale for this alternative scenario is simple: readers would have to be able to keep track of which meanings belong to which positions in the sequence, given that each word has a unique role in contributing to sentence comprehension.…”

Section: (3) Ambiguity Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Readers Are Parallel Processors

Snell

Grainger

2019

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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100

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Reading research has long endorsed the view that words are processed strictly one by one. The primary empirical test of this notion is the search for effects from upcoming words on readers' eye movements during sentence reading.Here we argue that no conclusions can be drawn from the absence of such effects, and that the serial versus parallel processing debate cannot be resolved without treading beyond the methodological scope of tracking eye movements. Recent considerations of how the brain organizes linguistic input have sparked key predictions in-and outside the realm of text reading, with ensuing research revealing phenomena that complicate the serial processing perspective. A case is made for parallelism, along with new methods to infer the cognitive architecture driving reading. The Serial Processing IdealIt is evident that when we read, we adopt a largely serial strategy: texts are processed from left to right and from the top downwards, with the eyes' fixation jumping from one word to the next. Should we cease to impose seriality on the linguistic plane that bombards our retina with so many words at once, we would squander the canonical order of words and so a key ingredient of linguistic communication. Moreover, simultaneous processing of multiple words might conceivably incite word-to-word interference; for instance, through confusion about which letters belong to which word. For these reasons we can safely claim that during text reading we should ideally be able to confine our attention (see Glossary) to single words. But to what extent can we live up to this ideal?In the course towards a full understanding of the reading system, the question of whether readers process multiple words simultaneously has retained much prominence. Precisely a decade ago Reichle, Liversedge, Pollatsek, and Rayner expressed in this journal the opinion that parallel word processing is implausible [1]. At the time, it had already become clear that serial and parallel processing frameworks were equally capable of accounting for eye movement behavior during text reading [2][3][4]. Therefore, Reichle et al.'s argument for serial processing was not necessarily data driven (although later empirical work was deemed to be in support of serial processing; see the next section), but rather one of parsimony: a serial processing system recognizes words in the intended order and does not mix-up information across words, given that only one word is attended at any time. By contrast, a parallel processing system might recognize words out of order, and 'if one were to simultaneously activate orthographic units for two words, this would produce noisy output corresponding to neither word' ([1], see p. 117).A decade later, we can but agree that a serial processing system would have the simplest time reading, yet recent research has yielded various reasons to believe that the reading process is in fact not so simple. In this Opinion article we show that the serial processing assumption holds only if the word recognition process is treated as a ...

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Section: Box 2 Lessons From Research On Parafoveal Processingmentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Trends In Cognitive Sciencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: (3) Ambiguity Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: (3) Ambiguity Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Readers Are Parallel Processors

Snell

Grainger

2019

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

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100

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“…There are important costs and benefits to consider with respect to the flanker‐ERP paradigm. This paradigm has now been adopted quite widely in the literature, and its relative strengths and weaknesses have been addressed across a now substantial number of prior studies (Barber et al, , ; Declerck, Snell, & Grainger, ; Kornrumpf et al, ; Li et al, ; Niefind & Dimigen, ; Payne et al, ; Payne & Federmeier, ; Snell, Bertrand, & Grainger, ; Snell, Declerck, & Grainger, ; Snell, Meeter, & Grainger, ; Snell, Vitu, & Grainger, ; Stites et al, ; Zhang, Li, Wang, & Wang, ). Nevertheless, there are some important considerations with respect to the current findings that merit review.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Event‐related brain potentials reveal how multiple aspects of semantic processing unfold across parafoveal and foveal vision during sentence reading

2019

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Recent event‐related brain potential (ERP) experiments have demonstrated parafoveal N400 expectancy and congruity effects, showing that semantic information can be accessed from words in parafoveal vision (a conclusion also supported by some eye‐tracking work). At the same time, it is unclear how higher‐order integrative aspects of language comprehension unfold across the visual field during reading. In the current study, we recorded ERPs in a parafoveal flanker paradigm, while readers were instructed to read passively for comprehension or to judge the plausibility of sentences in which target words varied in their semantic expectancy and congruity. We directly replicated prior work showing graded N400 effects for parafoveal viewing, which are then not duplicated when the target words are processed foveally. Critically, although N400 effects were not modulated by task goals, a posteriorly distributed late positive component thought to reflect semantic integration processes was observed to semantic incongruities only in the plausibility judgment task. However, this effect was observed at a considerable delay, appearing only after words had moved into foveal vision. Our findings thus suggest that semantic access can be initiated in parafoveal vision, whereas central foveal vision may be necessary to enact higher‐order (and task‐dependent) integrative processing.

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Word Recognition I

Grainger¹

2022

The Science of Reading

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Parallel semantic processing in reading revisited: effects of translation equivalents in bilingual readers

Cited by 44 publications

References 48 publications

Readers Are Parallel Processors

Readers Are Parallel Processors

Event‐related brain potentials reveal how multiple aspects of semantic processing unfold across parafoveal and foveal vision during sentence reading

Word Recognition I

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