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Keith Rayner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Two stages of Parafoveal Processing during reading: Evidence from a display change detection task
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2016Co-Authors: Bernhard Angele, Timothy J. Slattery, Keith RaynerAbstract:We used a display change detection paradigm (Slattery, Angele, & Rayner Human Perception and Performance , 37 , 1924–1938 2011 ) to investigate whether display change detection uses orthographic regularity and whether detection is affected by the Processing difficulty of the word preceding the boundary that triggers the display change. Subjects were significantly more sensitive to display changes when the change was from a nonwordlike preview than when the change was from a wordlike preview, but the preview benefit effect on the target word was not affected by whether the preview was wordlike or nonwordlike. Additionally, we did not find any influence of preboundary word frequency on display change detection performance. Our results suggest that display change detection and lexical Processing do not use the same cognitive mechanisms. We propose that Parafoveal Processing takes place in two stages: an early, orthography-based, preattentional stage, and a late, attention-dependent lexical access stage.
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the effect of contextual constraint on Parafoveal Processing in reading
Journal of Memory and Language, 2015Co-Authors: Elizabeth R Schotter, Michael Reiderman, Keith RaynerAbstract:Semantic preview benefit in reading is an elusive and controversial effect because empirical studies do not always (but sometimes) find evidence for it. Its presence seems to depend on (at least) the language being read, visual properties of the text (e.g., initial letter capitalization), the type of relationship between preview and target, and as shown here, semantic constraint generated by the prior sentence context. Schotter (2013) reported semantic preview benefit for synonyms, but not semantic associates when the preview/target was embedded in a neutral sentence context. In Experiment 1, we embedded those same previews/targets into constrained sentence contexts and in Experiment 2 we replicated the effects reported by Schotter (2013; in neutral sentence contexts) and Experiment 1 (in constrained contexts) in a within-subjects design. In both experiments, we found an early (i.e., first-pass) apparent preview benefit for semantically associated previews in constrained contexts that went away in late measures (e.g., total time). These data suggest that sentence constraint (at least as manipulated in the current study) does not operate by making a single word form expected, but rather generates expectations about what kinds of words are likely to appear. Furthermore, these data are compatible with the assumption of the E-Z Reader model that early oculomotor decisions reflect “hedged bets” that a word will be identifiable and, when wrong, lead the system to identify the wrong word, triggering regressions.
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rethinking Parafoveal Processing in reading serial attention models can explain semantic preview benefit and n 2 preview effects
Visual Cognition, 2014Co-Authors: Elizabeth R Schotter, Erik D. Reichle, Keith RaynerAbstract:During reading, some information about the word to the right of fixation in the parafovea is typically acquired prior to that word being fixated. Although some degree Parafoveal Processing is uncontroversial, its precise nature and extent are unclear. For example, can it advance up to the level of semantic Processing? Additionally, can it extend across more than two spatially adjacent words? Affirmative answers to either of these questions would seemingly be problematic for serial-attention models of eye-movement control in reading, which maintain that attention is allocated to only one word at a time (see Reichle, 2011). However, in this paper we report simulation results using one such model, E-Z Reader (Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998), to examine the two preceding questions. These results suggest the existence of both semantic preview and N+2 preview effects, indicating that they are not incompatible with serial-attention models. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of e...
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Orthographic and Phonological Preview Benefits: Parafoveal Processing in Skilled and Less-Skilled Deaf Readers:
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), 2013Co-Authors: Nathalie N. Bélanger, Rachel I. Mayberry, Keith RaynerAbstract:Many deaf individuals do not develop the high-level reading skills that will allow them to fully take part into society. To attempt to explain this widespread difficulty in the deaf population, much research has honed in on the use of phonological codes during reading. The hypothesis that the use of phonological codes is associated with good reading skills in deaf readers, though not well supported, still lingers in the literature. We investigated skilled and less-skilled adult deaf readers' Processing of orthographic and phonological codes in Parafoveal vision during reading by monitoring their eye movements and using the boundary paradigm. Orthographic preview benefits were found in early measures of reading for skilled hearing, skilled deaf, and less-skilled deaf readers, but only skilled hearing readers processed phonological codes in Parafoveal vision. Crucially, skilled and less-skilled deaf readers showed a very similar pattern of preview benefits during reading. These results support the notion th...
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Effects of Parafoveal word length and orthographic features on initial fixation landing positions in reading
Attention Perception & Psychophysics, 2012Co-Authors: Patrick Plummer, Keith RaynerAbstract:Previous research has demonstrated that readers use word length and word boundary information in targeting saccades into upcoming words while reading. Previous studies have also revealed that the initial landing positions for fixations on words are affected by Parafoveal Processing. In the present study, we examined the effects of word length and orthographic legality on targeting saccades into Parafoveal words. Long (8–9 letters) and short (4–5 letters) target words, which were matched on lexical frequency and initial letter trigram, were paired and embedded into identical sentence frames. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975 ) was used to manipulate the Parafoveal information available to the reader before direct fixation on the target word. The Parafoveal preview was either identical to the target word or was a visually similar nonword. The nonword previews contained orthographically legal or orthographically illegal initial letters. The results showed that orthographic preProcessing of the word to the right of fixation affected eye movement targeting, regardless of word length. Additionally, the lexical status of an upcoming saccade target in the parafovea generally did not influence preProcessing.
Erik D. Reichle - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The effects of Parafoveal word frequency and segmentation on saccade targeting during Chinese reading
Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2019Co-Authors: Yanping Liu, Ziyi Duan, Erik D. ReichleAbstract:Two eye-movement experiments are reported in which a boundary paradigm was used to manipulate the presence versus absence of boundaries for high-frequency and low-frequency target words in the parafovea. In Experiment 1, this was done by introducing a blank space after the target words, whereas in Experiment 2 this was done by rendering the target words in red. In both experiments, higher frequency targets engendered longer saccades, whereas the presence of Parafoveal word boundaries engendered shorter saccades. This pattern suggests the operation of two countermanding saccade-targeting mechanisms: one that uses Parafoveal Processing difficulty to adjust saccade lengths and a second that uses word boundaries to direct the eyes toward specific saccade targets. The implications of these findings for models of eye-movement control during reading are discussed, as are suggestions for integrating dynamic-adjustment and default-targeting accounts.
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Further Tests of a Dynamic-Adjustment Account of Saccade Targeting During the Reading of Chinese.
Cognitive science, 2017Co-Authors: Yanping Liu, Ren Huang, Dingguo Gao, Erik D. ReichleAbstract:There are two accounts of how readers of unspaced writing systems (e.g., Chinese) know where to move their eyes: (a) saccades are directed toward default targets (e.g., centers of words that have been segmented in the parafovea); or (b) saccade lengths are adjusted dynamically, as a function of ongoing Parafoveal Processing. This article reports an eye-movement experiment supporting the latter hypothesis by demonstrating that the slope of the relationship between the saccade launch site on word N and the subsequent fixation landing site on word N + 1 is > 1, suggesting that saccades are lengthened from launch sites that afford more Parafoveal Processing. This conclusion is then evaluated and confirmed via simulations using implementations of both hypotheses (Liu, Reichle, & Li, 2016), with a discussion of these results for our understanding of saccadic targeting during reading and existing models of eye-movement control.
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Further Tests of a Dynamic‐Adjustment Account of Saccade Targeting During the Reading of Chinese
Cognitive Science, 2017Co-Authors: Yanping Liu, Ren Huang, Dingguo Gao, Erik D. ReichleAbstract:There are two accounts of how readers of unspaced writing systems (e.g., Chinese) know where to move their eyes: (a) saccades are directed toward default targets (e.g., centers of words that have been segmented in the parafovea); or (b) saccade lengths are adjusted dynamically, as a function of ongoing Parafoveal Processing. This article reports an eye-movement experiment supporting the latter hypothesis by demonstrating that the slope of the relationship between the saccade launch site on word N and the subsequent fixation landing site on word N + 1 is > 1, suggesting that saccades are lengthened from launch sites that afford more Parafoveal Processing. This conclusion is then evaluated and confirmed via simulations using implementations of both hypotheses (Liu, Reichle, & Li, 2016), with a discussion of these results for our understanding of saccadic targeting during reading and existing models of eye-movement control.
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Why does removing inter-word spaces produce reading deficits? The role of Parafoveal Processing
Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2016Co-Authors: Heather Sheridan, Erik D. Reichle, Eyal M. ReingoldAbstract:To examine the role of inter-word spaces during reading, we used a gaze-contingent boundary paradigm to manipulate Parafoveal preview (i.e., valid vs. invalid preview) in a normal text condition that contained spaces (e.g., "John decided to sell the table") and in an unsegmented text condition that contained random numbers instead of spaces (e.g.,"John4decided8to5sell9the7table"). Preview effects on mean first-fixation durations were larger for normal than unsegmented text conditions, and survival analyses revealed a delay in the onset of both preview validity and word-frequency effects on first-fixation durations for unsegmented relative to normal text. Taken together with simulations that were conducted using the E-Z Reader model, the present findings indicated that unsegmented text deficits reflect disruptions to both Parafoveal Processing and lexical Processing. We discuss the implications of our results for models of eye-movement control.
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An Analysis of the Time Course of Lexical Processing During Reading
Cognitive science, 2015Co-Authors: Heather Sheridan, Erik D. ReichleAbstract:Reingold, Reichle, Glaholt, and Sheridan (2012) reported a gaze-contingent eye-movement experiment in which survival-curve analyses were used to examine the effects of word frequency, the availability of Parafoveal preview, and initial fixation location on the time course of lexical Processing. The key results of these analyses suggest that lexical Processing begins very rapidly (after approximately 120 ms) and is supported by substantial Parafoveal Processing (more than 100 ms). Because it is not immediately obvious that these results are congruent with the theoretical assumption that words are processed and identified in a strictly serial manner, we attempted to simulate the experiment using the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control (Reichle, 2011). These simulations were largely consistent with the empirical results, suggesting that Parafoveal Processing does play an important functional role by allowing lexical Processing to occur rapidly enough to mediate direct control over when the eyes move during reading.
Reinhold Kliegl - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Parafoveal Processing of phonology and semantics during the reading of Korean sentences
Cognition, 2019Co-Authors: Ming Yan, Aiping Wang, Hosu Song, Reinhold KlieglAbstract:Abstract The present study sets out to address two fundamental questions in the reading of continuous texts: Whether semantic and phonological information from upcoming words can be accessed during natural reading. In the present study we investigated Parafoveal Processing during the reading of Korean sentences, manipulating semantic and phonological information from Parafoveal preview words. In addition to the first evidence for a semantic preview effect in Korean, we found that Korean readers have stronger and more long-lasting phonological than semantic activation from Parafoveal words in second-pass reading. The present study provides an example that human mind can flexibly adjust Processing priority to different types of information based on the linguistic environment.
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dissociating preview validity and preview difficulty in Parafoveal Processing of word n 1 during reading
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2014Co-Authors: Sarah Risse, Reinhold KlieglAbstract:Many studies have shown that previewing the next word n + 1 during reading leads to substantial Processing benefit (e.g., shorter word viewing times) when this word is eventually fixated. However, evidence of such preProcessing in fixations on the preceding word n when in fact the information about the preview is acquired is far less consistent. A recent study suggested that such effects may be delayed into fixations on the next word n + 1 (Risse & Kliegl, 2012). To investigate the time course of Parafoveal information-acquisition on the control of eye movements during reading, we conducted 2 gaze-contingent display-change experiments and orthogonally manipulated the Processing difficulty (i.e., word frequency) of an n + 1 preview word and its validity relative to the target word. Preview difficulty did not affect fixation durations on the pretarget word n but on the target word n + 1. In fact, the delayed preview-difficulty effect was almost of the same size as the preview benefit associated with the n + 1 preview validity. Based on additional results from quantile-regression analyses on the time course of the 2 preview effects, we discuss consequences as to the integration of foveal and Parafoveal information and potential implications for computational models of eye guidance in reading.
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Parafoveal Processing Efficiency in Rapid Automatized Naming: A Comparison between Chinese Normal and Dyslexic Children
The Mind Research Repository, 2014Co-Authors: Ming Yan, Jochen Laubrock, Reinhold Kliegl, Jinger Pan, Hua ShuAbstract:Dyslexic children are known to be slower than normal readers in rapid automatized naming (RAN). This suggests that dyslexics encounter local Processing difficulties, which presumably induce a narrower perceptual span. Consequently, dyslexics should suffer less than normal readers from removing Parafoveal preview. Here we used a gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm in a RAN task to experimentally test this prediction. Results indicate that dyslexics extract less Parafoveal information than control children. We propose that more attentional resources are recruited to the foveal Processing because of dyslexics’ less automatized translation of visual symbols into phonological output, thereby causing a reduction of the perceptual span. This in turn leads to less efficient pre-activation of Parafoveal information and hence more difficult in Processing the next foveal item. DOI:10.1016/j.jecp.2013.01.007 Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
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Dissociating Preview Validity and Preview Difficulty in Parafoveal Processing of Word n+1 during Reading
The Mind Research Repository, 2014Co-Authors: Sarah Risse, Reinhold KlieglAbstract:Many studies have shown that previewing the next word n +1 during reading leads to substantial Processing benefit (e.g., shorter word viewing times) when this word is eventually fixated. However, evidence of such preProcessing in fixations on the preceding word n when in fact the information about the preview is acquired is far less consistent. A recent study suggested that such effects may be delayed into fixations on the next word n +1 (Risse & Kliegl, 2012). In order to investigate the time course of Parafoveal information-acquisition on the control of eye movements during reading, we conducted two gaze-contingent display- change experiments and orthogonally manipulated the Processing difficulty (i.e., word frequency) of an n +1 preview word and its validity relative to the target word. Preview difficulty did not affect fixation durations on the pretarget word n but on the target word n +1. In fact, the delayed preview-difficulty effect was almost of the same size as the preview benefit associated with the n +1 preview validity. Based on additional results from quantile- regression analyses on the time course of the two preview effects, we discuss consequences as to the integration of foveal and Parafoveal information and potential implications for computational models of eye guidance in reading. Journal of Experimental Psycholog: Human Perception and Performance
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Dissociating preview validity and preview difficulty in Parafoveal Processing of word n + 1 during reading.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2013Co-Authors: Sarah Risse, Reinhold KlieglAbstract:Many studies have shown that previewing the next word n + 1 during reading leads to substantial Processing benefit (e.g., shorter word viewing times) when this word is eventually fixated. However, evidence of such preProcessing in fixations on the preceding word n when in fact the information about the preview is acquired is far less consistent. A recent study suggested that such effects may be delayed into fixations on the next word n + 1 (Risse & Kliegl, 2012). To investigate the time course of Parafoveal information-acquisition on the control of eye movements during reading, we conducted 2 gaze-contingent display-change experiments and orthogonally manipulated the Processing difficulty (i.e., word frequency) of an n + 1 preview word and its validity relative to the target word. Preview difficulty did not affect fixation durations on the pretarget word n but on the target word n + 1. In fact, the delayed preview-difficulty effect was almost of the same size as the preview benefit associated with the n + 1 preview validity. Based on additional results from quantile-regression analyses on the time course of the 2 preview effects, we discuss consequences as to the integration of foveal and Parafoveal information and potential implications for computational models of eye guidance in reading.
Simon Paul Liversedge - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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A co-registration investigation of inter-word spacing and Parafoveal preview: Eye movements and fixation-related potentials.
PloS one, 2019Co-Authors: Federica Degno, Manman Zhang, Chuanli Zang, Otto Loberg, Nick Donnelly, Simon Paul LiversedgeAbstract:Participants' eye movements (EMs) and EEG signal were simultaneously recorded to examine foveal and Parafoveal Processing during sentence reading. All the words in the sentence were manipulated for inter-word spacing (intact spaces vs. spaces replaced by a random letter) and Parafoveal preview (identical preview vs. random letter string preview). We observed disruption for unspaced text and invalid preview conditions in both EMs and fixation-related potentials (FRPs). Unspaced and invalid preview conditions received longer reading times than spaced and valid preview conditions. In addition, the FRP data showed that unspaced previews disrupted reading in earlier time windows of analysis, compared to string preview conditions. Moreover, the effect of Parafoveal preview was greater for spaced relative to unspaced conditions, in both EMs and FRPs. These findings replicate well-established preview effects, provide novel insight into the neural correlates of reading with and without inter-word spacing and suggest that spatial selection precedes lexical Processing.
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The influence of foveal lexical Processing load on Parafoveal preview and saccadic targeting during Chinese reading.
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 2019Co-Authors: Manman Zhang, Simon Paul Liversedge, Guoli Yan, Xuejun Bai, Chuanli ZangAbstract:Whether increased foveal load causes a reduction of Parafoveal Processing remains equivocal. The present study examined foveal load effects on Parafoveal Processing in natural Chinese reading. Parafoveal preview of a single-character Parafoveal target word was manipulated by using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975; pseudocharacter or identity previews) under high foveal load (low-frequency pretarget word) compared with low foveal load (high-frequency pretarget word) conditions. Despite an effective manipulation of foveal Processing load, we obtained no evidence of any modulatory influence on Parafoveal Processing in first-pass reading times. However, our results clearly showed that saccadic targeting, in relation to forward saccade length from the pretarget word and in relation to target word skipping, was influenced by foveal load and this influence occurred independent of Parafoveal preview. Given the optimal experimental conditions, these results provide very strong evidence that preview benefit is not modulated by foveal lexical load during Chinese reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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Binocular advantages for Parafoveal Processing in reading.
Vision research, 2018Co-Authors: Mirela Nikolova, Stephanie Jainta, Hazel I. Blythe, Simon Paul LiversedgeAbstract:During reading, binocular visual input results in superior performance and is particularly important in the pre-Processing of Parafoveal text prior to direct fixation. It is not yet clear whether binocular vision in the parafovea is necessary for accurate saccadic targeting, or for efficient pre-Processing of upcoming text, prior to direct fixation. In the present sentence reading experiment, we used a dichoptic gaze-contingent moving window paradigm in order to establish 1) how much Parafoveal binocular input is necessary for fluent reading and 2) which aspect of Parafoveal Processing is more reliant on binocular vision. Eye movement measures revealed that reading was disrupted unless word N + 1 was entirely binocular in the parafovea, though no additional benefit was observed when word N + 2 was also binocular. Additionally, while fixation durations and reading times were clearly affected by the manipulation, similarly pronounced changes in binocular saccadic parameters such as accuracy, speed, amplitude and velocity were not observed. We concluded that the disruption to reading caused by presenting monocular text to the right of fixation cannot be attributed to difficulties in targeting binocular saccacdes, but instead results from a decreased efficiency in the pre-Processing of Parafoveal text. These results provide further demonstration for the importance of binocular vision during written text Processing.
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The morphosyntactic structure of compound words influences Parafoveal Processing in Chinese reading
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), 2017Co-Authors: Denis Drieghe, Lei Cui, Guoli Yan, Xuejun Bai, Hui Chi, Simon Paul LiversedgeAbstract:In an eye movement experiment employing the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) we compared Parafoveal preview benefit during the reading of Chinese sentences. The target word was a 2-character compound that had either a noun-noun or an adjective-noun structure each sharing an identical noun as the second character. The boundary was located between the two characters of the compound word. Prior to the eyes crossing the boundary the preview of the second character was presented either normally or was replaced by a pseudo-character. Previously, Juhasz, Inhoff and Rayner (2005) observed that inserting a space into a normally unspaced compound in English significantly disrupted Processing and that this disruption was larger for adjective-noun compounds than for noun-noun compounds. This finding supports the hypothesis that, at least in English, for adjective-noun compounds, the noun is more important for lexical identification than the adjective, while for noun-noun compounds, both constituents are similar in importance for lexical identification. Our results indicate a similar division of the importance of compounds in reading in Chinese as the pseudo-character preview was more disruptive for the adjective-noun compounds than for the noun-noun compounds. These findings also indicate that Parafoveal Processing can be influenced by the morphosyntactic structure of the currently fixated character.
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Parafoveal Processing of Arabic diacritical marks
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance, 2016Co-Authors: Ehab W. Hermena, Simon Paul Liversedge, Denis DriegheAbstract:Diacritics are glyph-like marks on letters that convey vowel information in Arabic, thus allowing for accurate pronunciation and disambiguation of homographs. For skilled readers, diacritics are usually omitted except when their omission causes ambiguity. Undiacritized homographs are very common in Arabic and are predominantly heterophones (where each meaning sounds different), with one version more common (dominant) than the others (subordinate). In this study we investigated Parafoveal Processing of diacritics during reading. We presented native readers with heterophonic homographs embedded in sentences with diacritization that instantiated either dominant or subordinate pronunciations of the homographs. Using the boundary paradigm, we presented previews of these words carrying either: identical diacritization to the target; inaccurate diacritization, such that if the target had dominant diacritization, the preview contained subordinate diacritization, and vice versa; or no diacritics. The results showed that readers processed the identity of diacritics Parafoveally, such that inaccurate previews of the diacritics resulted in inflated fixation durations, particularly for fixations originating at close launch sites. Moreover, our results clearly indicate that readers' expectation for dominant or subordinate diacritization patterns influences their Parafoveal and foveal Processing of diacritics. Specifically, a perceived absence of diacritics (either in no-diacritics previews, or because the eyes were too far away to process the presence of diacritics) induced an expectation for the dominant pronunciation, whereas the perceived presence of diacritics induced an expectation for the subordinate meaning.
Olaf Dimigen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Dissociating Parafoveal preview benefit and parafovea‐on‐fovea effects during reading: A combined eye tracking and EEG study
Psychophysiology, 2016Co-Authors: Florian Niefind, Olaf DimigenAbstract:During reading, the Parafoveal Processing of an upcoming word n+1 can influence word recognition in two ways: It can affect fixation behavior during the preceding fixation on word n (parafovea-on-fovea effect, POF), and it can facilitate subsequent foveal Processing once word n+1 is fixated (preview benefit). While preview benefits are established, evidence for POF effects is mixed. Recently, it has been suggested that POF effects exist, but have a delayed impact on saccade planning and thus coincide with preview benefits measured on word n+1. We combined eye movement and EEG recordings to investigate and separate neural correlates of POF and preview benefit effects. Participants read lists of nouns either in a boundary paradigm or the RSVP-with-flankers paradigm, while we recorded fixation- or event-related potentials (FRPs/ERPs), respectively. The validity and lexical frequency of the word shown as preview for the upcoming word n+1 were orthogonally manipulated. Analyses focused on the first fixation on word n+1. Preview validity (correct vs. incorrect preview) strongly modulated fixation times and electrophysiological N1 amplitudes, replicating previous findings. Importantly, gaze durations and FRPs measured on word n+1 were also affected by the frequency of the word shown as preview, with low-frequency previews eliciting a sustained, N400-like centroparietal negativity. Results support the idea that POF effects exist but affect word recognition with a delay. Lastly, once word n+1 was fixated, its frequency also modulated N1 amplitudes in ERPs and FRPs. Taken together, we separated immediate and delayed effects of Parafoveal Processing on brain correlates of word recognition.
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Parafoveal Processing in reading chinese sentences evidence from event related brain potentials
Psychophysiology, 2015Co-Authors: Florian Niefind, Suiping Wang, Werner Sommer, Olaf DimigenAbstract:Natural reading involves the preProcessing of upcoming words, resulting in shorter fixations on words visible in the parafovea during preceding fixations. While this preview benefit is established in behavior, its brain-electric correlates have only recently been investigated. Using fixation-related potentials, an attenuation of the occipitotemporal N1 component for words that were Parafoveally visible during preceding fixations has been demonstrated. In contrast, another study, using an RSVP paradigm with Parafoveal flanker words, observed no such general preview benefit in ERPs, but instead reported N400 effects triggered by semantically incongruous Parafoveal words. To follow up on these discrepant findings and to extend them to a nonalphabetic writing system, we conducted two ERP experiments with Chinese readers using the RSVP-with-flankers paradigm and rigorous fixation control via eye tracking. We replicate robust Parafoveal N400 semantic congruency effects in Chinese participants. Additionally, we found that, once a word was directly looked at, words after a valid preview elicited a smaller N1 and a weaker N400 than those after an invalid preview. Results underline the importance of considering Parafoveal vision in ERP studies on reading.
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Parafoveal Processing in reading Chinese sentences: Evidence from event‐related brain potentials
Psychophysiology, 2015Co-Authors: Florian Niefind, Suiping Wang, Werner Sommer, Olaf DimigenAbstract:Natural reading involves the preProcessing of upcoming words, resulting in shorter fixations on words visible in the parafovea during preceding fixations. While this preview benefit is established in behavior, its brain-electric correlates have only recently been investigated. Using fixation-related potentials, an attenuation of the occipitotemporal N1 component for words that were Parafoveally visible during preceding fixations has been demonstrated. In contrast, another study, using an RSVP paradigm with Parafoveal flanker words, observed no such general preview benefit in ERPs, but instead reported N400 effects triggered by semantically incongruous Parafoveal words. To follow up on these discrepant findings and to extend them to a nonalphabetic writing system, we conducted two ERP experiments with Chinese readers using the RSVP-with-flankers paradigm and rigorous fixation control via eye tracking. We replicate robust Parafoveal N400 semantic congruency effects in Chinese participants. Additionally, we found that, once a word was directly looked at, words after a valid preview elicited a smaller N1 and a weaker N400 than those after an invalid preview. Results underline the importance of considering Parafoveal vision in ERP studies on reading.
