Subjective familiarity of English word/name homophones

The subjective familiarity of 40 homophone pairs was examined. The homophones consisted of monosyllabic English words (on one reading) and male first names (on the other)—for example,art andArt. Subjects heard these homophones embedded in two kinds of lists, one with 40 unambiguous words and one with 40 unambiguous names. Ratings were made for familiarity as words and as names. These correlated significantly with the log of printed frequency (.63 for words, .53 for names). In a final task, just the homophones were presented, and the subjects were asked for a comparative rating of whether the word usage or the name usage was more familiar. This direct comparison correlated well (.91) with the difference between the ratings for the name and word familiarities, but less well (.55) with the differences between the printed frequencies of the word and name meanings. This indicates either consistent biases in the judgments or true differences between printed frequencies and subjective familiarity.     

Idioms in sentences: Effects of frequency,literalness, and familiarity

This study investigated the relationship between subjective frequency of literal usage (literalness), subjective frequency of figurative usage (familiarity), and mean Kucera and Francis (1967) word frequency for idiom phrases. Kucera and Francis frequency was found to be independent of both familiarity and literalness. Furthermore, it was found that literalness, but not the Kucera and Francis frequency of the words in the phrase, affected reading time for literal uses of idioms. For figurative uses of idioms, familiarity and written frequency interacted. A model of idiom processing consistent with the current results and previous results is proposed. In addition, subjective familiarity and literalness norms are provided for 245 idioms.Portions of the normative study were based upon subjects in Schweigert and Cronk (1992).     

The role of phonology in incidental vocabulary acquisition during silent reading

In two experiments, we investigated the role of phonology in learning new words incidentally during silent reading. Participants read sentence pairs containing novel or known words that varied in homophony (whether another word exists with an alternate spelling for the same pronunciation). In Experiment 1, we monitored readers' eye movements to investigate online processes involved in establishing meanings for novel words. In Experiment 2, participants completed cued recall and vocabulary recognition tasks after the reading session to assess the influence of phonological form on word learning. Eye movement results indicate that readers spent the most time reading novel homophones (e.g., skwosh) and surrounding context, indicating that phonological information is activated early during a reader's initial encounter with a new letter string. Retention measures suggest that readers were able to infer a meaning for each novel word type, despite the increased difficulty associated with reading novel words with familiar phonological forms, and that phonology aided the acquisition of orthography.     

义符熟悉性对低频形声字词汇通达的影响

采用启动词汇判断范式, 探讨义符熟悉性对低频形声字词汇通达的影响。结果表明, 义符加工与整字加工存在动态的交互作用。在加工早期, 低频形声字的整字语义并未得到激活, 但此时高熟悉义符出现了语义启动, 低熟悉义符的启动作用不明显。在加工晚期, 低频形声字的整字语义得到了激活, 高、低熟悉的义符均出现了语义激活, 但整字通达与义符通达之间存在竞争。在整字语义通达之后, 义符的词形信息也会激活。整个研究表明, 义符熟悉性和整字频率是影响词汇加工的重要因素, 不仅影响对整字语义通达的速度, 也影响亚词汇成分的加工。根据研究的结果, 构建了义符在词汇通达中的作用的模型。     

图文横排促进低熟悉词汇再认:基于8岁儿童和成人证据

图文信息广泛存在于书面材料中,但是图文材料相对呈现位置和熟悉性如何交互影响信息加工效率,及其认知机制尚不清楚。本研究基于认知负荷理论框架,采用学习-再认范式,结合学习者的认知能力（注意、工作记忆、识字量等）,考察图文材料呈现位置（横排/竖排）和熟悉性（高/低）对32名儿童（7.89 ±0.30岁）和32名成人（22.67 ±3.48岁）词汇再认的影响。结果显示：（1）总体上,低熟悉性词汇在图文横排呈现时再认正确率较高,但高熟悉性词汇不受位置影响;（2）儿童对高熟悉性词汇的再认正确率较高,但成人对低熟悉性词汇的再认正确率较高;（3）儿童识字量越大,词汇再认速度越快;成人注意力、工作记忆广度、识字量成绩越高,再认正确率越高。结果表明,无论对儿童还是成人,外在负荷（呈现位置）和内在负荷（熟悉性）之间均存在交互作用,即外在负荷显著影响高内在负荷信息的加工,但对低内在负荷信息的加工影响较弱,验证了认知负荷理论。本研究成果为不同难度水平的教材排版设计和词汇识别学习提供了科学依据。     

发展性阅读障碍儿童阅读中的眼跳定位缺陷：基于新词学习的实验证据

通过与生理年龄匹配儿童比较新词重复学习中眼跳定位模式变化的异同, 探讨发展性阅读障碍儿童在新词学习中的眼跳定位是否存在缺陷。以发展性阅读障碍儿童和生理年龄匹配儿童为被试, 采用重复学习新词范式, 结果发现：(1)与生理年龄匹配组相比, 发展性阅读障碍儿童跳入新词的眼跳距离较短、首次注视落点位置更靠近词首; (2)生理年龄匹配组儿童利用学习次数调节新词眼跳定位模式的能力高于发展性阅读障碍儿童, 即随着新词学习次数的增加, 生理年龄匹配组儿童跳入和跳出新词的眼跳距离随之增长, 首次注视落点位置更靠近词中心; 相比之下, 发展性阅读障碍儿童仅在跳出新词的眼跳距离上有所增长, 但增加幅度也显著小于生理年龄匹配组。结果表明, 发展性阅读障碍儿童在新词学习中的眼跳定位, 及利用学习次数对眼跳定位的调节上均表现出一定缺陷。     

Word length effects on novel words: Evidence from eye movements

The present study investigated the effects of word length on eye movement behavior during initial processing of novel words while reading. Adult skilled readers’ eye movements were monitored as they read novel or known target words in sentence frames with neutral context preceding the target word. Comparable word length effects on all single-fixation measures for novel and known words suggested that both types of words were subject to similar initial encoding strategies. The impact of the absence of an existing lexical entry emerged in multiple first-pass fixation measures in the form of interactions between word length (long and short) and word type (novel and known). Specifically, readers spent significantly more first-pass time refixating long novel targets than short novel targets; however, the first-pass time spent refixating known controls did not differ as a function of length. Implications of these findings for models of eye movement control while reading, as well as for vocabulary acquisition in reading, are discussed.     

Evidence for several components of word familiarity

Familiarity with a word can be divided into two main components: familiarity with the form of the word (due to both its lexicality and its specific form) and familiarity with its meaning. In this study, ratings of familiarity were compared for words whose meaning was unknown to participants (UM words), for words of known meaning (KM words), and for unknown words (U words). Linguistic and experiential frequencies were equivalent. Rated familiarity was lower for UM than KM words and even lower for U words. Next, we built pseudowords from these stimuli by changing one letter and submitted them to two familiarity rating tasks that differed in the nature of the additional stimuli: either only nonwords or nonwords plus words. It was assumed that familiarity ratings would be lower for pseudowords built from UM words than for pseudowords built from KM words. The data were consistent with this assumption, and ratings depended on the initial categories of stimuli. These results support the view that usual word familiarity has two components, familiarity with form and familiarity with meaning, and a double source, processing of word form and processing of word meaning. The full set of these materials and norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Meaning-dependent ratings of imagery,age of acquisition,familiarity, and concreteness for 387 ambiguous words

The problem of word ambiguity has generally been overlooked in compiling lists of words measured on various attributes. In this study, rating measures were obtained on the meanings of 387 words, the ambiguity of which had been established empirically. Imagery, age-of-acquisition, concreteness, and familiarity ratings are reported for each meaning, together with an index of meaning dominance. The results suggest that the most dominant meanings tend to be the most imageable, concrete, familiar, and earliest acquired. Generally satisfactory correlations with other norms were obtained.     

Eye movement control during reading: Effects of word frequency and orthographic familiarity

Word frequency and orthographic familiarity were independently manipulated as readers' eye movements were recorded. Word frequency influenced fixation durations and the probability of word skipping when orthographic familiarity was controlled. These results indicate that lexical processing of words can influence saccade programming (as shown by fixation durations and which words are fixated). Orthographic familiarity, but not word frequency, influenced the duration of prior fixations. These results provide evidence for orthographic, but not lexical, parafoveal-on-foveal effects. Overall, the findings have a crucial implication for models of eye movement control in reading: There must be sufficient time for lexical factors to influence saccade programming before saccade metrics and timing are finalized. The conclusions are critical for the fundamental architecture of models of eye movement control in reading -- namely, how to reconcile long saccade programming times and complex linguistic influences on saccades during reading.     

Context length and reading novel words: An eye‐movement investigation

The current study investigated the effects of context length on the processing of novel words. Participants read real adjectives or novel words embedded in either sentence or paragraph contexts while their eye movements were recorded. The results extend the literature on novel word reading by exploring the time‐course of word processing using realistic contexts derived from existing sources. Eye‐movement measures demonstrated that readers were very sensitive to the presence of novel words. Novel words were more likely to be fixated and had longer reading times than real words. In addition, words in sentence contexts had longer gaze durations than words in paragraphs. The effect of novelty on reading the target word did not vary as a function of the context length. While performance on the surprise post‐test did not demonstrate significant word learning, participants did report higher confidence in correct responses than incorrect, suggesting that some learning took place.     

Investigating the effects of a set of intercorrelated variables on eye fixation durations in reading

The present experiment investigated the influence of 5 intercorrelated variables on word recognition using a multiple regression analysis. The 5 variables were word frequency, subjective familiarity, word length, concreteness, and age of acquisition (AoA). Target words were embedded in sentences and eye tracking methodology was used to investigate the predictive power of these variables. All 5 variables were found to influence reading time. However, the time course of these variables differed. Both word frequency and familiarity showed an early but lasting influence on eye fixation durations. Word length only significantly predicted fixation durations after refixations on the target words were taken into account. This is the 1st experiment to demonstrate concreteness and AoA effects on eye fixations.     

大学生词的获得年龄、熟悉度、具体性和词频效应的眼动研究

采用眼动实验方法,研究大学生词的获得年龄、熟悉度、具体性和词频四个变量在句子阅读中所产生的字词识别效应,以及效应作用的时间进程。对这四个变量与词阅读的首次注视时间、单一注视时间、凝视时间、总注视时间进行多元重复回归分析,结果发现,词频和熟悉度在词识别过程的所有方面都具有重要性,获得年龄对词识别的早期加工过程敏感,具体性对各个阶段的词识别影响不显著。     

How Word Familiarity Facilitates Visual Search for Verbal Material

Two experiments assessed the impact of word familiarity on visual search for phrases. Participants' eye movements were recorded while they memorized target phrases and then searched for them within more or less similar phrases. The phrases were written with either familiar or unfamiliar, neuroscience‐specific vocabulary. Most participants did not search for the target by reading lines in a systematic way but scanned the first words of phrases to identify those beginning with the same words as the target. Visual search for unfamiliar target phrases was associated with an increase in the number of non‐target phrases that were scanned. The only search phase during which fixation durations depended on word familiarity was the final recognition of the target phrase. Hence, the data support a model of search within menu‐like displays in which searchers primarily rely on fast, visual match mechanisms and engage in reading‐like processing only during the critical decision‐making phase. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

汉语新词词汇化的眼动研究

本研究采用眼动技术,操纵词类型和熟悉性来探讨汉语新词的词汇化程度。结果发现,新词在眼动早期、晚期加工指标上和词汇词没有显著差异;相比低熟悉新词,高熟悉新词在凝视时间、回视时间及总注视时间上加工时间更短。研究表明部分新词已达到与《现代汉语词典》中词汇词词汇化程度的相同水平,新词与词之间没有严格的界限,熟悉性在新词词汇化过程中起到了主要作用。     

新词词素熟悉性影响视觉词切分线索在新词学习中的促进作用

为考察词素熟悉性是否会影响视觉词切分线索在新词学习中的作用,本研究中新词由两类假词构成：第一类假词由两个高频字（高熟悉性词素）组成,第二类假词由两个低频字（低熟悉性词素）组成。实验采用学习-测试范式,将新词镶嵌在句子中供大学生被试阅读。结果发现,相比由低熟悉性词素构成的新词,词间空格在由高熟悉词素构成的新词中起到的促进作用更大。表明在汉语阅读过程中,词素熟悉性可能作为一种线索参与词切分。     

Children reading spoken words: interactions between vocabulary and orthographic expectancy

There is an established association between children's oral vocabulary and their word reading but its basis is not well understood. Here, we present evidence from eye movements for a novel mechanism underlying this association. Two groups of 18 Grade 4 children received oral vocabulary training on one set of 16 novel words (e.g., ‘nesh’, ‘coib’), but no training on another set. The words were assigned spellings that were either predictable from phonology (e.g., nesh) or unpredictable (e.g., koyb). These were subsequently shown in print, embedded in sentences. Reading times were shorter for orally familiar than unfamiliar items, and for words with predictable than unpredictable spellings but, importantly, there was an interaction between the two: children demonstrated a larger benefit of oral familiarity for predictable than for unpredictable items. These findings indicate that children form initial orthographic expectations about spoken words before first seeing them in print. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/jvpJwpKMM3E .     

Emotion words affect eye fixations during reading

Emotion words are generally characterized as possessing high arousal and extreme valence and have typically been investigated in paradigms in which they are presented and measured as single words. This study examined whether a word's emotional qualities influenced the time spent viewing that word in the context of normal reading. Eye movements were monitored as participants read sentences containing an emotionally positive (e.g., lucky), negative (e.g., angry), or neutral (e.g., plain) word. Target word frequency (high or low) was additionally varied to help determine the temporal locus of emotion effects, with interactive results suggesting an early lexical locus of emotion processing. In general, measures of target fixation time demonstrated significant effects of emotion and frequency as well as an interaction. The interaction arose from differential effects with negative words that were dependent on word frequency. Fixation times on emotion words (positive or negative) were consistently faster than those on neutral words with one exception-high-frequency negative words were read no faster than their neutral counterparts. These effects emerged in the earliest eye movement measures, namely, first and single fixation duration, suggesting that emotionality, as defined by arousal and valence, modulates lexical processing. Possible mechanisms involved in processing emotion words are discussed, including automatic vigilance and desensitization, both of which imply a key role for word frequency. Finally, it is important that early lexical effects of emotion processing can be established within the ecologically valid context of fluent reading.     

藏语阅读中中央凹词频效应及对副中央凹预视效应的影响

在不同语言文字系统中, 对于眼动控制的本质及其发生机制, 尤其是阅读过程中注意资源的分配是序列分布还是平行分布的问题, 目前仍然存在着争论和分歧。藏语是拼音文字, 但它同时又具有汉语的特点, 独具语言特色。因此, 通过对藏语阅读过程中中央凹词频对副中央凹预视效应影响这一问题的探讨, 可以在一种已有研究未曾涉及的文字系统中进一步推动上述争议的解决。本研究采用眼动记录法, 设计了两个实验。实验1操纵了中央凹词频(高频、低频), 考察藏语阅读中中央凹词的词频效应及词频延迟效应, 结果发现, 藏语阅读中存在词频效应及词频延迟效应。实验2同时操纵中央凹词频和副中央凹预视词类型, 借助边界范式, 考察藏语阅读中副中央凹预视效应及中央凹词频对副中央凹预视效应的影响, 结果发现, 藏语阅读中存在副中央凹预视效应, 且与低频中央凹词相比, 高频中央凹词对副中央凹预视效应的促进作用更大。两个实验结果表明:(1)藏语阅读中存在显著的词频效应, 且表现在词汇加工的整个过程; (2)藏语阅读中存在显著的词频延迟效应, 并贯穿于词汇加工的整个过程; (3)藏语阅读中存在显著的副中央凹预视效应, 读者能通过副中央凹预视提取到语音和字形信息。藏语阅读中中央凹词频影响副中央凹预视效应的大小, 且词频只在词汇加工的早期对形的预视信息的提取产生影响, 即在形似预视条件下高频词的预视效应更大; (4)本研究发现的词频延迟效应及副中央凹预视效应, 支持了E-Z读者模型中有关副中央凹序列加工的观点。