Examining misses in reading aloud repeated words

This study examined a novel task in which participants read aloud passages shown two words per line on a computer screen. There were four different passages, all of which included unrelated sentences, with each sentence containing one test word. The passages differed only in the text type (prose, scrambled) and in the identity of the test word (the, one). The word the is a common function word, whereas one is a less common content word. The test word was repeated in half of the sentences at the end of one line and at the start of the following line. Many more misses in reading aloud occurred on the than on one, especially for prose passages; almost all misses involved repeated words. These results were interpreted in terms of hypotheses and models that have been proposed for the letter-detection task. Specifically, it is concluded that reading aloud is influenced by structural processes that differentiate between function and content words.     

词间空格促进从右向左呈现汉语文本的阅读

摘要：为探讨在无阅读经验时,词切分线索是否促进读者的阅读与词汇识别,本研究操纵了阅读方向、词切分线索与目标词的词频。采用眼动仪记录读者的阅读过程。结果发现：阅读方向与词切分线索的交互作用显著,词切分显著地促进了从右向左呈现文本的阅读,但并不影响阅读从左向右呈现的文本;词切分条件下目标词的注视时间显著地短于无词切分条件。表明词切分线索促进了无阅读经验时的阅读,支持词切分线索的促进与文本不熟悉干扰之间权衡作用的假设。     

汉语老年读者的多词单元加工：来自眼动研究的证据

选取由两个双字词组成的多词组合（单词组合、模糊词组合、双词组合）,比较老年人和青年人对多词单元的加工情况。结果发现,相比于其他两类组合,所有被试在单词组合上的注视时间更短,第一遍注视次数更少,成分词上的注视时间更短,跳读率更高,表现出多词单元的加工优势,而且这一加工优势不存在显著的年龄差异。结果表明,汉语老年读者同样将多词单元作为整体进行加工。     

Direct versus indirect tests of memory: Directed forgetting meets the generation effect

Subjects read 20 words and generated 20 others from definitions during a 40-item study phase. Production of each word was followed by an instruction to remember or to forget that word. In free recall, a direct test of memory, words that had been generated were recalled much better than words that had been read. The remember-forget instructional manipulation affected read words but not generated words. In speeded word reading, an indirect test of memory, all studied words showed priming, but read words showed more priming than generated words. Here, the effect of remember versus forget instructions appeared only for generated words. These dissociations of a direct and an indirect test indicate that two powerful encoding manipulations affect separable processes to which these tests are differentially sensitive.     

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。     

词边界信息对读者阅读歧义短语时眼跳策略的影响

采用Eye Link 2000眼动仪,选取60个歧义短语,要求大学生被试阅读包含有歧义短语的句子。句子的呈现设置了四种条件:正常无阴影、词间阴影、歧义阴影和字间阴影,以探讨词边界信息是否影响读者阅读歧义短语时的注视位置效应。结果发现:读者对歧义短语的首次注视位置在四种条件下基本一致;词边界信息影响读者对歧义短语的再注视概率。结果表明,词边界信息对歧义短语的影响主要体现在眼跳行动(即"where")的晚期阶段。     

Lexical processes and eye movements in neglect dyslexia

Neglect dyslexia is a disturbance in the allocation of spatial attention over a letter string following unilateral brain damage. Patients with this condition may fail to read letters on the contralesional side of an orthographic string. In some of these cases, reading is better with words than with non-words. This word superiority effect has received a variety of explanations that differ, among other things, with regard to the spatial distribution of attention across the letter string during reading. The primary goal of the present study was to explore the interaction between attention and lexical processes by recording eye movements in a patient (F.C.) with severe left neglect dyslexia who was required to read isolated word and non-word stimuli of various length. F.C.'s ocular exploration of orthographic stimuli was highly sensitive to the lexical status of the letter string. We found that: (1) the location to which F.C. directed his initial saccade (obtained approximately 230 ms post-stimulus onset) differed between word and non-word stimuli; (2) the patient spent a greater amount of time fixating the contralesional side of word than non-word strings. Moreover, we also found that F.C. failed to identify the left letters of a string despite having fixated them, thus showing a clear dissociation between eye movement responses and conscious access to orthographic stimuli. Our data suggest the existence of multiple interactions between lexical, attentional and eye movement systems that occur from very initial stages of visual word recognition.     

Action and object processing in aphasia: from nouns and verbs to the effect of manipulability

The processing of words and pictures representing actions and objects was tested in 21 aphasic patients and 20 healthy controls across three word production tasks: picture-naming (PN), single word reading (WR) and word repetition (WRP). Analysis 1 targeted task and lexical category (noun-verb), revealing worse performance on PN and verb items for both patients and control participants. For Analysis 2 we used data collected in a concurrent gesture norming study to re-categorize the noun-verb items along hand imagery parameters (i.e., objects that can/cannot be manipulated and actions which do/do not involve fine hand movements). Here, patients displayed relative difficulty with the 'manipulable' items, while controls displayed the opposite pattern. Therefore, whereas the noun-verb distinction resulted simply in lower verb accuracy across groups, the 'manipulability' distinction revealed a 'double-dissociation' between patients and control participants. These results carry implications for theories of embodiment, lexico-semantic dissociations, and the organization of meaning in the brain.     

A blank look in reading: the effect of blank space on the identification of letters and words during reading

Two experiments investigated the effect of visual blank space on reading by varying the amount of interletter and interline blank space in prose passages. Increasing interletter blank spacing slowed the reading process overall, presumably because it disrupted the unitization of words and word identification, but it also improved the identification of the letters within words. By contrast, increasing interline blank spacing sped up the reading process overall, while also improving the identification of words and the letters within words, presumably because the extra spacing reduced the amount of visual information that was processed during reading. The latter finding supports the conclusion that information from surrounding lines of single-spaced text may interfere with reading.     

What is the optimal position of low-frequency words across line boundaries? An eye movement investigation

When displaying text on a page or a screen, only a finite number of characters can be presented on a single line. If the text exceeds that finite value, then text wrapping occurs. Often this process results in longer, more difficult to process words being positioned at the start of a line. We conducted an eye movement study to examine how this artefact of text wrapping affects passage reading. This allowed us to answer the question: should word difficulty be used when determining line breaks? Thirty-nine participants read 20 passages where low-frequency target words were either line-initial or line-final. There was no statistically reliable effect of our manipulation on passage reading time or comprehension despite several effects at a local level. Regarding our primary research question, the evidence suggests that word difficulty may not need to be accounted for when determining line breaks and assigning words to new lines.     

老年人与青年人阅读空格文本的注视位置效应

采用EyeLink2000眼动仪,以14名老年人和14名青年人为被试,探讨他们阅读空格汉语文本的注视位置效应.阅读材料分为正常无空格文本和词间空格文本两种.结果发现:(1)在阅读词间空格文本和正常无空格文本时,老年人与青年人都表现出单次注视的首次注视是位于词的中心,多次注视的首次注视是位于词的开头;(2)老年人阅读正常无空格文本时对词尾的注视概率显著低于词间空格文本,而青年人则没有差异.结果表明老年人与青年人在阅读空格文本时存在注视位置效应.     

Revisiting Huey: On the importance of the upper part of words during reading

Recent research has shown that that the upper part of words enjoys an advantage over the lower part of words in the recognition of isolated words. The goal of the present article was to examine how removing the upper/lower part of the words influences eye movement control during silent normal reading. The participants?? eye movements were monitored when reading intact sentences and when reading sentences in which the upper or the lower portion of the text was deleted. Results showed a greater reading cost (longer fixations) when the upper part of the text was removed than when the lower part of the text was removed (i.e., it influenced when to move the eyes). However, there was little influence on the initial landing position on a target word (i.e., on the decision as to where to move the eyes). In addition, lexical-processing difficulty (as inferred from the magnitude of the word frequency effect on a target word) was affected by text degradation. The implications of these findings for models of visual-word recognition and reading are discussed.     

The interaction of word frequency and word class: a test of the GO model's account of the missing-letter effect

When asked to detect target letters while reading a text, participants miss more letters in frequent function words than in less frequent content words. In this phenomenon, known as the missing-letter effect, two factors covary: word frequency and word class. According to the GO model, there should be an interaction between word class and word frequency with more omissions for function than for content words only among high-frequency words. This pattern would be due to the fact that function words could only assume a structure-supporting role if they are identified rapidly, which is only possible for high-frequency words. These predictions were tested by assessing omission rate for frequent and rare function and content words. Results lend support to the GO model with more omissions for frequent than for rare words, and more omissions for the function than for the content word among high-frequency words, but not among low-frequency words. These results were observed both in English (Experiment 1) and in French (Experiment 2).     

Perception of visual letter strings in a case of left neglect: Manipulation of the word form

Patients with lesions in the right parietal lobe neglect the left side of nonwords much more than the left side of words. This has been interpreted in terms of a more automatic process in reading words. The case of a patient with left visual neglect after a vascular right parietooccipital lesion is presented. He showed the phenomenon of a word superiority effect over nonword in reading at the beginning in a clinical test with static cards; 6 months later, after some recovery, the same phenomenon could be demonstrated only with tachistoscopic presentation, and it occurred even inside the good right visual hemifield. The word form of visually presented stimuli was manipulated, showing that there was a striking effect particularly when spacing the letters of words in a task that requires naming the stimulus. The patient's performance is interpreted in terms of an attentional deficit occurring at an early level of spatial information processing.     

中文文本熟悉性在词切分和词汇识别中的作用

基于E-Z读者模型和中文阅读的整合模型, 词切分和词汇识别是否属于交互作用的统一过程存在争议。通过转换阅读方向来操纵文本熟悉性, 研究其在词切分和词汇识别中的作用。实验1考察中文文本熟悉性和词间空格促进作用之间的权衡。使用Eyelink 1000记录40名大学生在中文阅读中的眼动特征。结果发现：词间空格对中文阅读的促进作用在阅读训练后消失, 表明中文阅读中文本熟悉性和词间空格的促进作用之间存在权衡。实验2操纵文本熟悉性和词频来探究文本熟悉性在词汇识别中的作用, 结果发现：文本熟悉性和词频在早期指标上的交互作用; 阅读训练和词频不存在交互作用, 表明文本熟悉性影响词汇识别的早期加工阶段。研究结果表明中文阅读的词切分和词汇识别可能是顺序加工, 支持E-Z读者模型。     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

颜色交替文本促进小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的眼动研究

聋生由于听力损失,导致其在阅读方面存在一定的困难。如何提高聋生的阅读效率是一个具有重要的实践价值的课题。本研究采用眼动追踪技术,以29名小学高年级聋生为研究对象,考察颜色交替词标记形式对小学高年级聋生篇章阅读的促进作用。结果发现,无论是眼动指标的整体分析还是局部分析,均支持颜色交替词标记文本可以有效地提高小学高年级聋生的语篇阅读效率。本研究结果对于训练提高小学高年级聋生的阅读效率具有一定的启发意义。     

Phonological priming and orthographic analogies in reading

Recent work has demonstrated that children can use orthographic analogies between the spelling patterns in words to help in decoding new words (e.g., using beak to read peak; Goswami, 1986, 1988). However, one objection has been that these analogy effects may be due to phonological priming. Two experiments examined the phonological priming alternative. In Experiment 1, a single word reading task compared the use of analogies to read words that shared both orthography and phonology (e.g., most-post), that shared orthography only (e.g., most-cost), or that shared phonology only (e.g. most-toast--the phonological priming condition). Limited effects of phonological priming were found. Experiment 2 then presented the same words embedded in prose passages--"real reading." While the orthographic analogy effect remained robust, the small phonological priming effect disappeared. It is argued that phonological priming is an insufficient explanation of the analogy effect at the single word level, and plays no role in the use of analogies in story reading.     

汉语阅读中的心理词加工

通过两项研究考察了汉语阅读中心理词存在的心理现实性及其加工效率问题。研究1采用词切分任务考察语法知识掌握水平不同的读者词切分的差异,发现他们在词切分上存在很大分歧,语法知识越丰富,词切分差异越小。研究2探讨心理词的加工效率,使用阴影标记目标词,产生四种呈现条件：正常条件、词汇词条件、心理词条件和非词条件,结果发现心理词比词汇词、非词更容易加工。两项研究结果表明汉语阅读的基本信息单元更可能是心理词。