词频与阅读方式对词跨行呈现效应的影响

通过使用眼动追踪技术,采用2（呈现条件：同行呈现、跨行呈现）×2（词频：高频、低频）×2（阅读方式：朗读、默读）的被试内实验设计,探讨了词频和阅读方式对词跨行呈现效应的影响。结果发现,呈现条件、词频和阅读方式的主效应显著,跨行呈现、低频和朗读的凝视时间和总注视时间更长、总注视次数更多;呈现条件之间在凝视时间上的差异,高频词大于低频词;呈现条件之间在凝视时间和总注视次数上的差异,朗读大于默读。结果表明,词跨行呈现干扰了阅读,且这种干扰作用受词频和阅读方式的影响。     

The attentional dynamics of masked detection

A dichoptic masking procedure was used to test whether the mask-dependent cuing effects found in luminance detection by P. L. Smith (2000a) were due to integration masking or interruption masking. Attentional cuing enhanced detection sensitivity (d') when stimuli were backwardly masked with either dichoptic or monoptic masks, whereas no cuing effect was found with unmasked stimuli, implying the mask dependencies were due to interruption of stimulus processing in visual cortex by the mask. The effect is predicted by a gated diffusion process model in which masks interrupt stimulus processing and attention controls the flow of information to a sequential-sampling decision mechanism. The model correctly predicts different patterns of performance for detection and discrimination and cuing effects in simple reaction time.     

Memory for word locations in reading

Sentences were presented in various spatial formats, and readers localised one word of each sentence using a mouse cursor directly after reading. There was a localisation advantage for cumulative over single-word displays, for left-to-right presentation over presentation in a 3 x 3 grid, and for complete over incomplete sentences. Comparing performance for predictable and unpredictable word locations suggests that word location memory in reading decays within three seconds to a span of only 2-3 entries, and that readers can then reconstruct word locations from item memory. Implications for the role of spatial cognition in reading are discussed.     

Components of Stroop-like interference in word reading

Previous research has shown that the naming of the picture of, for example, a guitar is substantially delayed when it is accompanied by the name of an object from the same semantic category (e.g., piano) as compared to a nonword control (e.g., xxxxx). La Heij (1988a) has shown that a large part of this Stroop-like interference effect can be attributed to two semantic characteristics of the distractor word: its semantic similarity to the target picture and its semantic relevance in the task at hand. Furthermore, it was argued that the locus of these two interference effects is the process of target-name retrieval. If this is true, semantic interference effects should diminish or disappear when, instead of a picture-naming task, a word-reading task is used. In the present study this prediction is tested. The effects of four distractor characteristics are examined: semantic relatedness, semantic relevance, response set membership and wordness. In contrast to the original picture-naming task only the effect of wordness reached significance. The results of experiments 2 and 3 show that the absence of significant semantic context effects in experiment 1 is not simply due to the fact that a distractor word has less time to affect a word-reading response. The results are taken to support a name-retrieval account of semantic interference in color and picture naming.     

The relationship between knowing a word and reading it aloud in children’s word reading development

This experiment examined the item-level relationship between 7-year-olds’ ability to read words aloud and their knowledge of the same words in the oral domain. Two types of knowledge were contrasted: familiarity with the phonological form of the word (lexical phonology), measured by auditory lexical decision, and semantic knowledge, measured by a definitions task. Overall, there was a robust relationship between word knowledge and reading aloud success. The association was stronger when words contained irregular spelling-sound correspondences. There was no evidence that a deeper or more semantic knowledge of words was more closely related to reading aloud success beyond the association between reading success and familiarity with the phonological form of the same words. This finding is not compatible with models that see semantics as contributing directly to the reading aloud process, at least during the relatively early stages of reading development. More critical was whether or not a word was considered a lexical item, as indexed by auditory lexical decision performance.     

A study of masked form priming in picture and word naming

We report a series of picture- and word-naming experiments in which the masked priming paradigm with prime exposures brief enough to prevent prime identification were used. Experiment 1 demonstrates that the prior presentation of the same word prime facilitates both picture and word naming independently of target frequency. In Experiments 2 and 3, primes that were pseudohomophones of picture targets produced facilitatory effects compared with orthographic controls, but these orthographically similar nonword primes did not facilitate picture naming compared with unrelated controls. On the other hand, word targets were primarily facilitated by orthographic prime— target overlap. This marked dissociation in the priming effects obtained with picture and word targets is discussed in relation to different explanations of masked form priming effects in visual word recognition and current models of picture and word naming.     

Bias in masked word identification: unconscious influences of repetition priming

The beneficial influence of a prior study episode on subsequent identification of a word includes a large bias component, revealed in the forced-choice variant of the masked word identification test. In that type of test, subjects show a preference for a studied probe over a nonstudied probe, regardless of which one matches the masked target word. The forced-choice test was used in the present experiments to test the possibility that this bias effect is due to conscious recollection. Results show that bias was strongly attenuated (1) by changes in modality between study and test, and (2) under certain conditions, by using a conceptually driven study task. The bias effect was found only when probes were orthographically similar to one another, as predicted by the counter model (Ratcliff & McKoon, 1997). These results provide strong evidence that the bias effect is not mediated by conscious recollection.     

Fixation durations before word skipping in reading

We resolve a controversy about reading fixations before word-skipping saccades which were reported as longer or shorter than control fixations in earlier studies. Our statistics are based on resampling of matched sets of fixations before skipped and nonskipped words, drawn from a database of 121,321 single fixations contributed by 230 readers of the Potsdam sentence corpus. Matched fixations originated from single-fixation forward-reading patterns and were equated for their positions within words. Fixations before skipped words were shorter before short or high-frequency words and longer before long or low-frequency words in comparison with control fixations. Reasons for inconsistencies in past research and implications for computational models are discussed.     

Foveal processing and word skipping during reading

An eyetracking experiment is reported examining the assumption that a word is skipped during sentence reading because parafoveal processing during preceding fixations has reached an advanced level in recognizing that word. Word n was presented with reduced contrast, with case alternation, or normally. Reingold and Rayner (2006) reported that, in comparison to the normal condition, reduced contrast increased viewing times on word n but not on word n+1, whereas case alternation increased viewing times on both words. These patterns were reflected in the fixation times of the present experiment, but a striking dissociation was observed in the skipping of word n+1: The reduced contrast of word n decreased skipping of word n+1, whereas case alternation did not. Apart from the amount of parafoveal processing, the decision to skip word n+1 is also influenced by the ease of processing word n: Difficulties in processing word n lead to a more conservative strategy in the decision to skip word n+1.     

Hemispheric specialization in reading and word recognition

Three experiments dealing with hemispheric specialization are presented. In Experiment 1, words and/or faces were presented tachistoscopically to the left or right of fixation. Words were more accurately identified in the right visual field and faces were more accurately identified in the left visual field. A forced choice error analysis for words indicated that errors made for word stimuli were most frequently visually similar words and this effect was particularly pronounced in the left visual field. Two additional experiments supported this finding. On the basis of the results, it was argued that word identification is a multistage process, with visual feature analysis carried out by the right hemisphere and identification and naming by the left hemisphere. In addition, Kinsbourne's attentional model of brain function was rejected in favor of an anatomical model which suggests that simultaneous processing of verbal and nonverbal information does not constrict the attention of either hemisphere.     

Temporal numerosity estimates for word lists

The Ss estimated the number of items seen when sequences of words were presented tachistoscopically at presentation rates from 4 to 16 words/sec. The degree of underestimation increased with increasing rates of presentation, and the maximum average counting rate was between 6 and 7 words/sec. In the second phase of the study, they were asked to recall as many words as possible from short sequences of words presented at rapid rates, as well as to estimate the number of words seen but not available for recall. The total number of words seen, as judged from these two reports, agreed closely with the counting rates. The number of words correctly recalled decreased with increasing presentation rates.     

The acquisition of parafoveal word information in reading

A somewhat counterintuitive finding has emerged from experiments that restrict the "window" of visual information available on a fixation during reading: fixation duration increases even though there is less information to process on a fixation. The two most likely explanations for this phenomenon are: (1) that the reader extracts abnormal information outside the window and this slows down processing; (2) that a restricted window does not allow a preview of a word before it is fixated, and hence identification of the word is slower when the word subsequently is fixated. In the present experiments, these two alternatives were tested. Conditions in which the size of the window alternated between fixations were compared with conditions in which the size of the window remained constant from fixation to fixation. This manipulation allowed us to separate effects due to restriction of the size of the window on the current fixation from preview benefits (which would be due to restriction of the size of the window on the prior fixation). Two experiments demonstrated clear beneficial effects on fixation duration due to receiving a preview of a word on the fixation prior to when it was fixated. In contrast, restriction of the size of the window had only marginal effects on the fixation on which that restriction occurred. In addition, a subsidiary analysis suggested that the benefit of previewing a word was influenced by its length; for short words, a preview primarily allowed the reader to skip the word more frequently, whereas for longer words, a preview primarily shortened the fixation time on the word when it was later fixated.     

The influence of word shading and word length on eye movements during reading

In three experiments rats were given short or long preexposure (4 or 10 sessions) to two compound flavours, AX and BX, according to an intermixed or a blocked schedule. Following preexposure, aversion conditioning trials were given with AX as the conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiments 1 and 2, retardation and summation tests were then carried out to assess the inhibitory properties of B (an Espinet procedure). In Experiment 3, test trials evaluated generalization from AX to BX (the standard perceptual learning procedure). The results showed that B performed as an inhibitor of the unconditioned stimulus (US; an Espinet effect) only after long intermixed preexposure, whereas a reliable perceptual learning effect was observed both after short and after long preeexposure. The observation that B had no detectable inhibitory properties after short preexposure casts doubt on the suggestion that inhibitory learning is responsible for perceptual learning after brief exposure to AX and BX.     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: evidence from masked phonological priming

Bilingual written language representation was investigated with the masked phonological priming paradigm. Pseudohomophonic and control primes of French target words were used to show that Dutch-French bilinguals exhibit the same pattern of phonological and orthographic priming as native French speakers, which suggests that the same processes underlie first-and second-language processing. It was also found that for bilinguals, but not monolinguals, it is possible to prime a target word of the second language with a homophonic stimulus (either word or nonword) of the first language. This interlingual phonological priming effect was of the same size as the intralingual priming effect. Implications for theories of bilingual written language representation and for the interpretation of the masked phonological priming paradigm are discussed.     

Eye movements and word skipping during reading: effects of word length and predictability

Eye movements were monitored as subjects read sentences containing high- or low-predictable target words. The extent to which target words were predictable from prior context was varied: Half of the target words were predictable, and the other half were unpredictable. In addition, the length of the target word varied: The target words were short (4-6 letters), medium (7-9 letters), or long (10-12 letters). Length and predictability both yielded strong effects on the probability of skipping the target words and on the amount of time readers fixated the target words (when they were not skipped). However, there was no interaction in any of the measures examined for either skipping or fixation time. The results demonstrate that word predictability (due to contextual constraint) and word length have strong and independent influences on word skipping and fixation durations. Furthermore, because the long words extended beyond the word identification span, the data indicate that skipping can occur on the basis of partial information in relation to word identity.     

Hemisphere differences in conscious and unconscious word reading

Hemisphere differences in word reading were examined using explicit and implicit processing measures. In an inclusion task, which indexes both conscious (explicit) and unconscious (implicit) word reading processes, participants were briefly presented with a word in either the right or the left visual field and were asked to use this word to complete a three-letter word stem. In an exclusion task, which estimates unconscious word reading, participants completed the word stem with any word other than the prime word. Experiment 1 showed that words presented to either visual field were processed in very similar ways in both tasks, with the exception that words in the right visual field (left hemisphere) were more readily accessible for conscious report. Experiment 2 indicated that unconsciously processed words are shared between the hemispheres, as similar results were obtained when either the same or the opposite visual field received the word stem. Experiment 3 demonstrated that this sharing between hemispheres is cortically mediated by testing a split-brain patient. These results suggest that the left hemisphere advantage for word reading holds only for explicit measures; unconscious word reading is much more balanced between the hemispheres.     

Using word reading time in text processing research

A study that employed a moving-window task was designed to test the paradigm’s sensitivity to different levels of interclause integration. The program that controlled the task, implemented on a Terak 8510/a microcomputer in UCSD Pascal, is described. The results of the study indicate that word reading time is indicative of lower and “midlevel” types of integration, but not higher order domain knowledge considerations.