Word predictability depends on parafoveal preview validity in Chinese reading

Abstract

Research with alphabetic scripts shows that providing an invalid parafoveal preview eliminates or diminishes effects of contextual predictability on word identification, revealing that such effects depend on the interplay between top-down contextual expectations and bottom-up perceptual information. Whether similar effects are observed character-based scripts like Chinese is unknown. However, such knowledge would extend our understanding of contextual prediction in different writing systems. Accordingly, we conducted an eye movement experiment using the boundary paradigm to assess contextual predictability effects on the processing of target words with valid and invalid parafoveal previews. Interactions between predictability and preview validity were observed in early reading times but not word-skipping for target words. This suggests an interplay between top-down and bottom-up processes drives contextual processing in Chinese reading, but that word-skipping is not strongly mediated by contextual expectations in this script. We consider these findings in relation to differences between alphabetic and non-alphabetic writing systems.

Flexible parafoveal encoding of character order supports word predictability effects in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements

“…cahc), and eliminated for orthographically dissimilar previews (e.g. pies; Balota, Pollatsek, & Rayner, 1985;see Staub, 2015), with similar effects for Chinese (Chang et al, 2020). These findings suggest that, in high-predictability contexts, readers assess the fit of parafoveal information with their expectations.…”

Do effects of visual contrast and font difficulty on readers’ eye movements interact with effects of word frequency or predictability?

“…Staub and Goddard (2019), following up on patterns in previous studies such as Balota, Pollatsek, and Rayner (1985) and Reingold, Reichle, Glaholt, and Sheridan (2012), found that when the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) is used to deny the reader parafoveal preview of a target word until it is directly fixated, the predictability of the target word no longer has an influence on early eye movement measures, while the frequency effect persists. The lack of predictability effect with invalid preview has now been replicated in Chinese reading (Chang et al, 2020), as well as in an eye movement corpus study (Luke, 2018) using the moving window paradigm (McConkie & Rayner, 1975). Thus, predictability may have most or all of its effect while a word is being viewed parafoveally, before it is directly fixated, while frequency also influences processes that occur during foveal viewing.…”

Predictability effects and parafoveal processing of compound words in natural Chinese reading

“…It appears that these expectations constrain lexical identification online during natural reading. To be clear, we have demonstrated that both higher order sources of semantic information (obtained from text to the left of fixation) and lower level perceptual and relatively shallow linguistic sources of information (obtained from upcoming text to the right of fixation) exert a direct and relatively immediate influence on word identification as we read ( Chang, Zhang, et al, 2020 ; Staub & Goddard, 2019 ). Our results are a clear illustration of concurrent top-down and bottom-up constraints in operation during sentence processing.…”