Serial processing is consistent with the time course of linguistic information extraction from consecutive words during eye fixations in reading: a response to Inhoff, Eiter, and Radach (2005)

A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach reported the results of 2 experiments that they claimed were problematic for serial attention models of eye movements in reading (such as the E-Z Reader model). In this reply, the authors demonstrate via argumentation and simulations that their data pose no serious problem for the E-Z Reader model or serial attention models in general.     

Assessing the importance of letter pairs in reading-parafoveal processing is not the only view: reply to Inhoff, Radach, Eiter, and Skelly (2003)

D. Briihl and A. W. Inhoff (1995; see record 1995-20036-001) found that exterior letter pairs showed no privileged status in reading when letter pairs were presented as parafoveal primes. However, T. R. Jordan, S. M. Thomas, G. R. Patching, and K. C. Scott-Brown (2003; see record 2003-07955-013) used a paradigm that (a) allowed letter pairs to exert influence at any point in the reading process, (b) overcame problems with the stimulus manipulations used by Briihl and Inhoff (1995), and (c) revealed a privileged status for exterior letter pairs in reading. A. W. Inhoff, R. Radach, B. M. Eiter, and M. Skelly (2003; see record 2003-07955-014) made a number of claims about the Jordan, Thomas, et al. study, most of which focus on parafoveal processing. This article addresses these claims and points out that although studies that use parafoveal previews provide an important contribution, other techniques and paradigms are required to reveal the full role of letter pairs in reading.     

Still no phonological typicality effect on word reading time (and no good explanation of one, either): a rejoinder to Farmer, Monaghan, Misyak, and Christiansen

In this brief rejoinder, we respond to Farmer, Monaghan, Misyak, and Christiansen (2011). We argue that the data still do not support the claim that reading time is affected by the phonological typicality of a word for its part of speech. We also question Farmer et al.'s claim that interleaving syntactic structures in an experiment modifies grammatically based syntactic expectations.     

Attention, researchers! it is time to take a look at the real world

Theories of attention, too often generated from artificial laboratory experiments, may have limited validity when attention in the natural world is considered. For instance, for more than two decades, conceptualizations of "reflexive" and "volitional" shifts of spatial attention have been grounded in methodologies that do not recognize or utilize the basic fact that people routinely use the eyes of other people as rich and complex attentional cues. This fact was confirmed by our novel discovery that eyes will trigger a reflexive shift of attention even when they are presented centrally and are known to be spatially nonpredictive. This exploration of real-world attention also led to our finding that, contrary to popular wisdom, arrows, like eyes, are capable of producing reflexive shifts of attention—a discovery that brings into question much of the existing attention research. We argue that research needs to be grounded in the real world and not in experimental paradigms. It is time for cognitive psychology to reaffirm the difficult task of studying attention in a manner that has relevance to real-life situations.     

Attention and spatial stimulus coding in the Simon task: a rejoinder to van der Lubbe and Abrahamse (2010)

Hommel (2011-this issue) has reviewed the major lines of research and ongoing controversies on and around the Simon effect. Van der Lubbe and Abrahamse (2010) take issue with Hommel's assessment of the role of attention shifting in the Simon effect. This rejoinder argues that van der Lubbe and Abrahamse's criticism is off target because it (a) fails to distinguish between the attention-shifting account of (spatial stimulus coding in) the Simon effect—which Hommel discusses and criticizes—and the premotor theory of attention—which Hommel does not discuss; (b) confuses the relationship between the attention-shifting account and the referential-coding account of spatial stimulus coding in the Simon effect—the actual topic of Hommel's discussion—with the relationship between the premotor theory and the theory of event coding—which the criticism focuses on; and (c) confuses the uncontroversial role of attention in stimulus selection with the controversial role of attention in the generation of location codes.     

The limitations of orthographic rime analogies in beginners' word reading: a reply to Goswami (1999)

U. Goswami (1999, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 210-219) argues that the findings of J. A. Bowey, L. Vaughan, and J. Hansen (1998, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 68, 108-133) are uninterpretable. This paper examines each of Goswami's criticisms of the methodology employed by Bowey et al. (1998). None can explain the differential analogy and phonological priming effects reported by Bowey et al. More fundamentally, none can explain the critical finding of Bowey et al. that, when phonological priming effects are controlled, the size of the end analogy effect is no greater than that of beginning and medial vowel analogy effects. Furthermore, some of Goswami's criticisms cast considerable doubt on the generalizability of findings from her version of the clue word task.     

Attention allocation to the right and left of a fixated word: Use of orthographic information from multiple words during reading

Eye movement contingent display changes were used to manipulate the information to the right of a fixated target in one experiment and to its right and left in a second experiment. Experiment 1 showed large increases in target viewing duration when orthographically illegal information was visible to the right of the target. Experiment 2 yielded smaller effects of orthographically illegal information in the parafovea on target viewing. Experiment 2 also showed that readers obtained useful information to the right of a fixated target irrespective of the type of information that was visible to the target's left. These results indicate that orthographic information is obtained from more than one word prior to saccade programming, and that the processing of orthographic information to the right and left of a fixated target is functionally independent.     

Temporal overlap in the linguistic processing of successive words in reading: reply to Pollatsek, Reichle, and Rayner (2006a)

A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, and K. Rayner argue that the critical findings in A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach are in general agreement with core assumptions of sequential attention shift models if additional assumptions and facts are considered. The current authors critically discuss the hypothesized time line of processing and indicate that the success of Pollatsek et al.'s simulation is predicated on a gross underestimation of the pretarget word's viewing duration in Inhoff et al. and that the actual data are difficult to reconcile with the strictly serial attention shift assumption. The authors also discuss attention shifting and saccade programming assumptions in the E-Z Reader model and conclude that these are not in harmony with research in related domains of study.     

The MCMI and DSM-III: a brief rejoinder to Million (1985)

Millon (1985) presented eight criticisms of the article by Widiger, Williams, Spitzer, and Frances (1985) on the MCMI as a measure of DSM-III. This article is a brief rejoinder. The major point we wish to make is that one should be cautious in interpreting the MCMI as a measure of DSM-III disorders because there has not yet been any research published on the relationship between the MCMI and DSM-III. We believe this position has not been refuted by Millon's critique.     

Children's printed word database: Continuities and changes over time in children's early reading vocabulary

In this paper we introduce a comprehensive database of the vocabulary in reading materials used by 5 – 9 year old children in the UK. The database is available on‐line http:www.essex.ac.ukpsychologycpwd and allows researchers into early reading development the possibility of rigorous control over critical characteristics of experimental stimuli such as word frequency, regularity and length, frequency of grapheme‐phoneme correspondences, orthographic and phonological neighbourhoods etc. The on‐line database is also a resource that can be used by practitioners with interests in literacy development and literacy instruction. It can be used to obtain characteristics for a user‐generated list of words, or else to generate a list of words according to constraints specified by the user. Here we present an overview of the construction of the database, the materials entered into it, the survey of schools by which we obtained information about the books that were most likely to be used by children in each age group, and the search features available on the database website. We also discuss certain characteristics of the Vocabulary itself and compare these with those reported in an earlier non‐representative database reported in Stuart, Dixon, Masterson and Gray (2003). We then present a detailed analysis of the characteristics of Vocabulary in books used in the Reception year, against the background of recent recommendations for change in the early teaching of reading. Finally, we present data showing that the database is indeed already proving a useful resource for both practitioners and researchers.     

Motion onset captures attention: a rejoinder to Franconeri and Simons (2005)

Recently, we have provided evidence that the onset of motion captures attention (Abrams & Christ, 2003, 2005a, 2005b). In the present article, we clarify the motion onset hypothesis, we discuss recent data (Franconeri & Simons, 2005) that, at least on the surface, seem to challenge the hypothesis, and we present results from a new experiment (Christ & Abrams, 2005). Finally, we conclude that, although motion onset does indeed appear to capture attention, motion in the absence of a motion onset might also attract attention under certain circumstances.     

Logic programming,probability, and two-system accounts of reasoning: a rejoinder to Oaksford and Chater (2014)

This reply to Oaksford and Chater’s (O&C)’s critical discussion of our use of logic programming (LP) to model and predict patterns of conditional reasoning will frame the dispute in terms of the semantics of the conditional. We begin by outlining some common features of LP and probabilistic conditionals in knowledge-rich reasoning over long-term memory knowledge bases. For both, context determines causal strength; there are inferences from the absence of certain evidence; and both have analogues of the Ramsey test. Some current work shows how a combination of counting defeaters and statistics from network monitoring can provide the information for graded responses from LP reasoning. With this much introduction, we then respond to O&C’s specific criticisms and misunderstandings.     

Learning to walk is still an "old" problem: a reply to Zelazo (1983)

Zelazo (1983) proposes that two cognitive prerequisites are necessary for the development of locomotion: The conversion of neo-natal reflexive stepping into instrumental behavior and a shift from stereotypical to relational play. I argue that these cognitive assumptions are unnecessary. The disappearance of neo-natal stepping can be explained as a result of increasing leg mass, and the retention of this reflex with practice may be simply an exercise effect. Comparative and evolutionary evidence suggests that locomotion is not associated with abstract reasoning ability. Learning to walk is a complex, gradual process of maturation of motivation, the integration of subcortical pattern-generating centers with the neural substrate for control of posture and balance, and important changes in body proportions and bone and muscle strength. The control of walking is likely the province of mechanism phylogenetically more primitive than the human cerebral cortex. There is no need to invoke cortical explanations when more simple ones are sufficient.     

Filling-in models of completion: rejoinder to Kellman, Garrigan, Shipley, and Keane (2007) and Albert (2007)

There has been a growing interest in understanding the computations involved in the processes underlying visual segmentation and interpolation in conditions of occlusion. P. J. Kellman, P. Garrigan, T. F. Shipley, and B. P. Keane and M. K. Albert defended the view that identical contour interpolation mechanisms underlie modal and amodal completion. In the current rejoinder, the author provides further psychophysical evidence against this view and argues that no physiological data support the claim that modal and amodal contours are represented identically at any stage of processing. The author also shows that the illusory glass surfaces that Kellman et al. and Albert upheld as evidence against his arguments about luminance constraints in completion are explained by theoretical principles that he has previously articulated, and variants of these illusions receive no explanation within either of the models Kellman et al. and Albert propose. The author shows that the principles needed to explain these percepts embody fundamental asymmetries in the way that relative depth shapes segmentation and interpolation processes and that models of completion that lack these constraints--such as P. J. Kellman, P. Garrigan, and T. F. Shipley's and M. K. Albert's --cannot account for a host of documented completion phenomena.     

Lip reading in infants: Attention to speech presented in- and out-of-synchrony

Twelve 10- to 16-week-old infants were presented with nursery rhymes spoken with speech sounds and lip movements in-synchrony and out-of-synchrony by 400 msec. Two observers measured the amount of time the infants did not attend to the two types of stimuli. The results showed that the infants attended significantly less to the out-of-synchrony presentation than to the in-synchrony presentation. This finding was interpreted as an indication that young infants are aware of the congruence between lip movements and speech sounds.     

Emotions in reading: Disgust, empathy and the contextual learning hypothesis

Emotion effects in reading have typically been investigated by manipulating words' emotional valence and arousal in lexical decision. The standard finding is that valence and arousal can have both facilitatory and inhibitory effects, which is hard to reconcile with current theories of emotion processing in reading. Here, we contrasted these theories with the contextual-learning hypothesis, according to which, sensitivity to a specific emotion - disgust in the present study - rather than valence or arousal affects lexical decision performance. Participants were divided into two groups (high versus low disgust sensitivity). Results showed that participants with high disgust sensitivity showed an inhibitory effect, whereas participants with low-disgust sensitivity showed a facilitatory effect. Individual differences in lexical decision performance were predicted by disgust sensitivity but not valence, arousal, or general emotion sensitivity. These findings highlight the need to focus on individual differences both in studies and theories of emotion processing in reading.