Parafoveal semantic information extraction in traditional Chinese reading

The time course of Cantonese and Hong Kong Sign Language phonological activation: An ERP study of deaf bimodal bilingual readers of Chinese

This study investigated Cantonese and Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) phonological activation patterns in Hong Kong deaf readers using the ERP technique. Two experiments employing the error disruption paradigm were conducted while recording participants' EEGs. Experiment 1 focused on orthographic and speech-based phonological processing, while Experiment 2 examined sign-phonological processing. ERP analyses focused on the P200 (180-220 ms) and N400 (300-500 ms) components. The results of Experiment 1 showed that hearing readers exhibited both orthographic and phonological effects in the P200 and N400 windows, consistent with previous studies on Chinese reading. In deaf readers, significant speech-based phonological effects were observed in the P200 window, and orthographic effects spanned both the P200 and N400 windows. Comparative analysis between the two groups revealed distinct spatial distributions for orthographic and speech-based phonological ERP effects, which may indicate the engagement of different neural networks during early processing stages. Experiment 2 found evidence of sign-phonological activation in both the P200 and N400 windows among deaf readers, which may reflect the involvement of sign-phonological representations in early lexical access and later semantic integration. Furthermore, exploratory analysis revealed that higher reading fluency in deaf readers correlated with stronger orthographic effects in the P200 window and diminished effects in the N400 window, indicating that efficient orthographic processing during early lexical access is a distinguishing feature of proficient deaf readers.

Early parafoveal semantic integration in natural reading

Humans can read and comprehend text rapidly, implying that readers might process multiple words per fixation. However, the extent to which parafoveal words are previewed and integrated into the evolving sentence context remains disputed. We investigated parafoveal processing during natural reading by recording brain activity and eye movements using MEG and an eye tracker while participants silently read one-line sentences. The sentences contained an unpredictable target word that was either congruent or incongruent with the sentence context. To measure parafoveal processing, we flickered the target words at 60 Hz and measured the resulting brain responses (i.e. Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging, RIFT) during fixations on the pre-target words. Our results revealed a significantly weaker tagging response for target words that were incongruent with the previous context compared to congruent ones, even within 100ms of fixating the word immediately preceding the target. This reduction in the RIFT response was also found to be predictive of individual reading speed. We conclude that semantic information is not only extracted from the parafovea but can also be integrated with the previous context before the word is fixated. This early and extensive parafoveal processing supports the rapid word processing required for natural reading. Our study suggests that theoretical frameworks of natural reading should incorporate the concept of deep parafoveal processing.

Shared translation in second language activates unrelated words in first language

The present study explored bilingual coactivation during natural monolingual sentence-reading comprehension. Native Chinese readers who had learned Japanese as a second language and those who had not learned it at all were tested. The results showed that unrelated Chinese word pairs that shared a common Japanese translation could parafoveally prime each other. Critically, this translation-related preview effect was modulated by the readers' language-learning experiences. It was found only among the late Chinese-Japanese bilinguals, but not among the monolingual Chinese readers. By setting a novel step, which was testing bilingual coactivation of semantic knowledge in a natural reading scenario without an explicit presentation of L2 words, our results suggest that bilingual word processing can be automatic, unconscious and nonselective. The study reveals an L2-to-L1 influence on readers' lexical activation during natural sentence reading in an exclusively native context.

Parafoveal and foveal N400 effects in natural reading: A timeline of semantic processing from fixation-related potentials

The depth at which parafoveal words are processed during reading is an ongoing topic of debate. Recent studies using RSVP-with-flanker paradigms have shown that implausible words within sentences elicit an N400 component while they are still in parafoveal vision, suggesting that the semantics of parafoveal words can be accessed to rapidly update the sentence representation. To study this effect in natural reading, we combined the coregistration of eye movements and EEG with the deconvolution modeling of fixation-related potentials (FRPs) to test whether semantic plausibility is processed parafoveally during Chinese sentence reading. For one target word per sentence, both its parafoveal and foveal plausibility were orthogonally manipulated using the boundary paradigm. Consistent with previous eye movement studies, we observed a delayed effect of parafoveal plausibility on fixation durations that only emerged on the foveal word. Crucially, in FRPs aligned to the pretarget fixation, a clear N400 effect emerged already based on parafoveal plausibility, with more negative voltages for implausible previews. Once participants fixated the target, we again observed an N400 effect of foveal plausibility. Interestingly, this foveal N400 was absent whenever the preview had been implausible, indicating that when a word's (im)plausibility is already processed in parafoveal vision, this information is not revised anymore upon direct fixation. Implausible words also elicited a late positive component (LPC), but exclusively when in foveal vision. Our results not only provide convergent neural and behavioral evidence for the parafoveal uptake of semantic information, but also indicate different contributions of parafoveal versus foveal information toward higher level sentence processing.

Chinese offers a test for universal cognitive processes

The Chinese writing system is unique in its implementation of graphemic, phonological, morphological, and semantic features. We add nuances to its portrait in the target article and highlight research on radically different timelines of phonological and semantic activation during reading of Chinese and alphabetic script, paving the way for the identification of universal and culture-specific cognitive processing.

Fixation-related fMRI analysis reveals the neural basis of natural reading of unspaced and spaced Chinese sentences

Although there are many eye-movement studies focusing on natural sentence reading and functional magnetic resonance imaging research on reading with serial visual presentation paradigms, there is a scarcity of investigations into the neural mechanism of natural sentence reading. The present study recruited 33 adults to read unspaced and spaced Chinese sentences with the eye tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging data recorded simultaneously. By using fixation-related functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis, this study showed that natural reading of Chinese sentences produced activations in ventral visual, dorsal attention, and semantic brain regions, which were modulated by the properties of words such as word length and word frequency. The multivoxel pattern analysis showed that the activity pattern in the left middle temporal gyrus could significantly predict the visual layout categories (i.e. unspaced vs. spaced conditions). Dynamic causal modeling analysis showed that there were bidirectional brain connections between the left middle temporal gyrus and the left inferior occipital cortex in the unspaced Chinese sentence reading but not in the spaced reading. These results provide a neural mechanism for the natural reading of Chinese sentences from the perspective of word segmentation.

Is learning a logographic script easier than reading an alphabetic script for German children with dyslexia?

PURPOSE

Developmental dyslexia in alphabetic languages (DD) is characterized by a phonological deficit. Since logographic scripts rely predominantly on visual and morphological processing, reading performance in DD can be assumed to be less impaired when reading logographic scripts.

METHODS

40 German-speaking children (18 with DD, 22 not reading-impaired-group C; 9-11 years) received Chinese lessons. Eye movements (EM) were recorded during naming single alphabetic words, pictures (confrontational) and Chinese characters to be named in German and Chinese. The main outcome variables were: Articulation latency, numbers and durations of fixations. Quality of life (QoL) was assessed by questionnaires.

RESULTS

While reading alphabetic words, articulation latencies and numbers of fixations were significantly higher for group DD than for group C (AL-DD = 1.13, AL-C = 0.84, p< .001; FN-DD = 3.50; FN-C = 2.00, p< .001). For naming pictures and Chinese characters in German and in Chinese, no significant group differences were found for any of the EM variables. The percentage of correct answers was high for German naming (DD = 86.67%, C = 95.24%; p = .015) and lower for Chinese naming in both groups, but significantly lower in group DD, especially for Chinese naming (DD = 56.67%, C: 83.77%; p = .003). QoL differed between groups from the children's perspective only at posttest. Parents of group DD perceived their children`s QoL to be lower compared with parents of group C at pre- and posttest.

CONCLUSIONS

Children with dyslexia performed as well as group C during naming Chinese characters in German and in Chinese regarding their EM variables, presumably because they processed Chinese characters by the visuo-spatial pathway with direct access to the semantic system. However, the significantly lower percentage of correct answers especially during Chinese naming showed that group DD had more difficulties naming Chinese characters than group C, which could be attributed to their phonological deficit, among other factors.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

German clinical trials register (DRKS00015697).

A Comparative Study of Three Measurement Methods of Chinese Character Recognition for L2 Chinese Learners

Measuring Chinese character recognition ability is essential in research on character learning among learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL). Three methods are typically used to evaluate character recognition competence by investigating the following properties of a given character: (a) pronunciation (phonological method), (b) meaning (semantic method), and (c) pronunciation and meaning (phonological and semantic or PS method). However, no study has explored the similar or dissimilar outcomes that these three measurements might yield. The current study examined this issue by testing 162 CSL learners with various L1 backgrounds and Chinese proficiency levels. Participants' performance in character recognition measured using a phonological method, a semantic method, and a PS method was compared, which led to two major findings. In terms of similarity, participants' performance in character recognition and the influence of L1 background and Chinese proficiency level on character recognition was similar across the three methods. As for differences, the semantic method could yield a character recognition test with better quality than the other two methods, and the three methods yielded different best fitting models and showed different predictions for Chinese proficiency across different L1 groups. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are proposed.

Accessing Semantic Information from Above: Parafoveal Processing during the Reading of Vertically Presented Sentences in Traditional Chinese

As traditional Chinese readers are familiar with reading texts both horizontally rightwards and vertically downwards, the traditional Chinese script provides us a chance to investigate the influence of reading direction on preview benefits by ruling out the confounding factor of different familiarities with reading directions. The present study examines whether parafoveal information can be obtained when reading Chinese sentences in the vertical direction. We manipulated semantic and phonological relatedness between parafoveal preview words and target words. Results showed that traditional Chinese readers could obtain semantic information from preview words; however, there was no phonological preview benefit. Our findings agree with the notion that Chinese characters are well-optimized for semantic access.

Orthographic Processing of Developmental Dyslexic Children in China: Evidence from an Event-Related Potential Study

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore the orthographic processing of simplified Chinese characters in developmental dyslexic children in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, and provide a theoretical basis for intervention strategies for developmental dyslexia in Chinese.

METHODS

Using event-related potential (ERP) measures, 18 developmental dyslexic children and 23 typically developing children performed a character decision task with three types of stimuli: real characters (RCs), pseudocharacters (PCs), and noncharacters (NCs).

RESULTS

Behavioral results showed that the control children displayed a faster and higher accurate performance than the dyslexic children across PCs and NCs. ERP data revealed that the RCs and PCs elicited a stronger P200 than the NCs. Compared with the RCs and NCs, children in the control group showed more N400 negatives for PCs. It is worth mentioning that dyslexic children did not show any difference on N400, which reflected the insufficient orthographic processing of dyslexic children in China.

CONCLUSION

These results show that Chinese dyslexic children had orthographic processing defects.

Eye movements during text reading align with the rate of speech production

Across languages, the speech signal is characterized by a predominant modulation of the amplitude spectrum between about 4.3 and 5.5 Hz, reflecting the production and processing of linguistic information chunks (syllables and words) every ~200 ms. Interestingly, ~200 ms is also the typical duration of eye fixations during reading. Prompted by this observation, we demonstrate that German readers sample written text at ~5 Hz. A subsequent meta-analysis of 142 studies from 14 languages replicates this result and shows that sampling frequencies vary across languages between 3.9 Hz and 5.2 Hz. This variation systematically depends on the complexity of the writing systems (character-based versus alphabetic systems and orthographic transparency). Finally, we empirically demonstrate a positive correlation between speech spectrum and eye movement sampling in low-skilled non-native readers, with tentative evidence from post hoc analysis suggesting the same relationship in low-skilled native readers. On the basis of this convergent evidence, we propose that during reading, our brain's linguistic processing systems imprint a preferred processing rate-that is, the rate of spoken language production and perception-onto the oculomotor system.

Cross-linguistic differences in parafoveal semantic and orthographic processing

In this study we investigated parafoveal processing by L1 and late L2 speakers of English (L1 German) while reading in English. We hypothesized that L2ers would make use of semantic and orthographic information parafoveally. Using the gaze contingent boundary paradigm, we manipulated six parafoveal masks in a sentence (Mark found th*e wood for the fire; * indicates the invisible boundary): identical word mask (wood), English orthographic mask (wook), English string mask (zwwl), German mask (holz), German orthographic mask (holn), and German string mask (kxfs). We found an orthographic benefit for L1ers and L2ers when the mask was orthographically related to the target word (wood vs. wook) in line with previous L1 research. English L2ers did not derive a benefit (rather an interference) when a non-cognate translation mask from their L1 was used (wood vs. holz), but did derive a benefit from a German orthographic mask (wood vs. holn). While unexpected, it may be that L2ers incur a switching cost when the complete German word is presented parafoveally, and derive a benefit by keeping both lexicons active when a partial German word is presented parafoveally (narrowing down lexical candidates). To the authors’ knowledge there is no mention of parafoveal processing in any model of L2 processing/reading, and the current study provides the first evidence for a parafoveal non-cognate orthographic benefit (but only with partial orthographic overlap) in sentence reading for L2ers. We discuss how these findings fit into the framework of bilingual word recognition theories.

Neural substrates of the interplay between cognitive load and emotional involvement in bilingual decision making

Prior work has reported that foreign language influences decision making by either reducing access to emotion or imposing additional cognitive demands. In this fMRI study, we employed a cross-task design to assess at the neural level whether and how the interaction between cognitive load and emotional involvement is affected by language (native L1 vs. foreign L2). Participants completed a Lexico-semantic task where in each trial they were presented with a neutrally or a negatively valenced word either in L1 or L2, either under cognitive load or not. We manipulated cognitive load by varying the difficulty of the task: to increase cognitive demands, we used traditional characters instead of simplified ones in L1 (Chinese), and words with capital letters instead of lowercase letters in L2 (English). After each trial, participants decided whether to take a risky decision in a gambling game. During the Gamling task, left amygdala and right insula were more activated after having processed a negative word under cognitive load in the Lexico-semantic task. However, this was true for L1 but not for L2. In particular, in L1, cognitive load facilitated rather than hindered access to emotion. Further suggesting that cognitive load can enhance emotional sensitivity in L1 but not in L2, we found that functional connectivity between reward-related striatum and right insula increased under cognitive load only in L1. Overall, results suggest that cognitive load in L1 can favor access to emotion and lead to impulsive decision making, whereas cognitive load in L2 can attenuate access to emotion and lead to more rational decisions.

Semantic preview benefit and cost: Evidence from parafoveal fast-priming paradigm

How is semantic information in the mental lexicon accessed and selected during reading? Readers process information of both the foveal and parafoveal words. Recent eye-tracking studies hint at bi-phasic lexical activation dynamics, demonstrating that semantically related parafoveal previews can either facilitate, or interfere with lexical processing of target words in comparison to unrelated previews, with the size and direction of the effect depending on exposure time to parafoveal previews. However, evidence to date is only correlational, because exposure time was determined by participants' pre-target fixation durations. Here we experimentally controlled parafoveal preview exposure duration using a combination of the gaze-contingent fast-priming and boundary paradigms. We manipulated preview duration and examined the time course of parafoveal semantic activation during the oral reading of Chinese sentences in three experiments. Semantic previews led to faster lexical access of target words than unrelated previews only when the previews were presented briefly (80 ms in Experiments 1 and 3). Longer exposure time (100 ms or 150 ms) eliminated semantic preview effects, and full preview without duration limit resulted in preview cost, i.e., a reversal of preview benefit. Our results indicate that high-level semantic information can be obtained from parafoveal words and the size and direction of the parafoveal semantic effect depends on the level of lexical activation.

Stroke Encoding Processes of Chinese Character During Sentence Reading

The present study was conducted to examine whether traditional and simplified Chinese readers (TCRs and SCRs) differed in stroke encoding in character processing by an eye-tracking experiment. We recruited 66 participants (32 TCRs and 34 SCRs) to read sentences comprising characters with different proportions and types of strokes removed in order to explore whether any visual complexity effect existed in their processing of simplified and traditional Chinese characters. The present study found a cross-script visual complexity effect and that SCRs were more influenced by visual complexity change in lexical access than were TCRs. In addition, the stroke-order effect appeared to be more salient for TCRs than for SCRs.

Do Readers Integrate Phonological Codes Across Saccades? A Bayesian Meta-Analysis and a Survey of the Unpublished Literature

It is commonly accepted that phonological codes can be activated parafoveally during reading and later used to aid foveal word recognition- a finding known as the phonological preview benefit. However, a closer look at the literature shows that this effect may be less consistent than what is sometimes believed. To determine the extent to which phonology is processed parafoveally, a Bayesian meta-analysis of 27 experiments and a survey of the unpublished literature were conducted. While the results were generally consistent with the phonological preview benefit (>90% probability of a true effect in gaze durations), the size of the effect was small. Readers of alphabetical orthographies obtained a modest benefit of only 4 ms in gaze durations. Interestingly, Chinese readers showed a larger effect (6-14 ms in size). There was no difference in the magnitude of the phonological preview benefit between homophone and pseudo-homophone previews, thus suggesting that the modest processing advantage is indeed related to the activation of phonological codes from the parafoveal word. Simulations revealed that the results are relatively robust to missing studies, although the effects may be 19-22% smaller if all missing studies found a null effect. The results suggest that while phonology can be processed parafoveally, this happens only to a limited extent. Because phonological priming effects in single-word recognition are small (10-13 ms; Rastle & Brysbaert, 2006) and there is a loss of visual acuity in the parafovea, it is argued that large phonological preview benefit effects may be unlikely.

Emotion in Chinese Words Could Not Be Extracted in Continuous Flash Suppression

Previous studies have demonstrated the automatic vigilance effect for faces and pictures and have attributed it to the brain's prioritized unconscious evaluation of early evolutionary stimuli that are critical to survival. Whether this effect exists for evolutionarily more recent stimuli, such as written words, has become the center of much debate. Apparently contradicting results have been reported in different languages, such as Hebrew, English, and Traditional Chinese (TC), with regard to the unconscious processing of emotional words in breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS). Our current study used two experiments (with two-character words or single-character words) to verify whether the emotional valence or the length of Simplified Chinese (SC) words would modulate conscious access in b-CFS. We failed to replicate the findings reported in Yang and Yeh (2011) using TC, but found that complex high-level emotional information could not be extracted from interocularly suppressed words regardless of their length. Our findings comply with the distinction between subliminal and preconscious states in Global Neuronal Workspace Theory and support the current notion that preconsciousness or partial awareness may be indispensable for high-level cognitive tasks such as reading comprehension.

Linguistic processes do not beat visuo-motor constraints, but they modulate where the eyes move regardless of word boundaries: Evidence against top-down word-based eye-movement control during reading

Where readers move their eyes, while proceeding forward along lines of text, has long been assumed to be determined in a top-down word-based manner. According to this classical view, readers of alphabetic languages would invariably program their saccades towards the center of peripheral target words, as selected based on the (expected) needs of ongoing (word-identification) processing, and the variability in within-word landing positions would exclusively result from systematic and random errors. Here we put this predominant hypothesis to a strong test by estimating the respective influences of language-related variables (word frequency and word predictability) and lower-level visuo-motor factors (word length and saccadic launch-site distance to the beginning of words) on both word-skipping likelihood and within-word landing positions. Our eye-movement data were collected while forty participants read 316 pairs of sentences, that differed only by one word, the prime; this was either semantically related or unrelated to a following test word of variable frequency and length. We found that low-level visuo-motor variables largely predominated in determining which word would be fixated next, and where in a word the eye would land. In comparison, language-related variables only had tiny influences. Yet, linguistic variables affected both the likelihood of word skipping and within-word initial landing positions, all depending on the words’ length and how far on average the eye landed from the word boundaries, but pending the word could benefit from peripheral preview. These findings provide a strong case against the predominant word-based account of eye-movement guidance during reading, by showing that saccades are primarily driven by low-level visuo-motor processes, regardless of word boundaries, while being overall subject to subtle, one-off, language-based modulations. Our results also suggest that overall distributions of saccades’ landing positions, instead of truncated within-word landing-site distributions, should be used for a better understanding of eye-movement guidance during reading.

Parafoveal processing of phonology and semantics during the reading of Korean sentences

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.

Parafoveal Processing in Chinese Sentence Reading: Early Extraction of Radical Level Phonology

The present study separated radical level phonology from character level phonology to explore the reliance on phonology during Chinese sentence reading with eye movement recording in a boundary paradigm. Participants viewed sentences with either regular, irregular, orthographically dissimilar homophone, or orthographically dissimilar non-homophone previews for the targets. Both regular and irregular characters contained the target character as the phonetic radical, with the regular character sharing the identical sound with its target phonetic radical. In Experiment 1, the irregular previews were different from the target phonetic radicals both in the first consonant and final compound vowels. In Experiment 2, the irregular characters would be replaced by the semi-regular previews, which shared the same final compound vowels but not the first consonant with the target characters. The radical level phonological preview benefit was obtained by the comparison between regular and irregular characters, while the character level phonological preview benefit was shown by the visually dissimilar homophones compared with the unrelated control condition. The preview benefit from parafoveal regular characters compared with irregular characters was observed in the first fixation duration, suggesting the early activation of phonological codes at radical levels. However, this preview benefit depends on phonological overlapping between the phonetic radicals and their host characters; it could be activated only when the pronunciation of the phonogram was totally consistent with that of its phonetic radical. Furthermore, the null preview effect of visually dissimilar homophones indicates no activation of phonological codes at the character level during Chinese sentence reading.

Processing of parafoveally presented words. An fMRI study

The present fMRI study investigated neural correlates of parafoveal preprocessing during reading and the type of information that is accessible from the upcoming - not yet fixated - word. Participants performed a lexical decision flanker task while the constraints imposed by the first three letters (the initial trigram) of parafoveally presented words were controlled. Behavioral results evidenced that the amount of information extracted from parafoveal stimuli, was affected by the difficulty of the foveal stimulus. Easy to process foveal stimuli (i.e., high frequency nouns) allowed parafoveal information to be extracted up to the lexical level. Conversely, when foveal stimuli were difficult to process (orthographically legal nonwords) only constraining trigrams modulated the task performance. Neuroimaging findings showed no effects of lexicality (i.e., difference between words and pseudowords) in the parafovea independently from the difficulty of the foveal stimulus. The constraints imposed by the initial trigrams, however, modulated the hemodynamic response in the left supramarginal gyrus. We interpreted the supramarginal activation as reflecting sublexical (phonological) processes. The missing parafoveal lexicality effect was discussed in relation to findings of experiments which observed effects of parafoveal semantic congruency on electrophysiological correlates.

Russian Sentence Corpus: Benchmark measures of eye movements in reading in Russian

This article introduces a new corpus of eye movements in silent reading-the Russian Sentence Corpus (RSC). Russian uses the Cyrillic script, which has not yet been investigated in cross-linguistic eye movement research. As in every language studied so far, we confirmed the expected effects of low-level parameters, such as word length, frequency, and predictability, on the eye movements of skilled Russian readers. These findings allow us to add Slavic languages using Cyrillic script (exemplified by Russian) to the growing number of languages with different orthographies, ranging from the Roman-based European languages to logographic Asian ones, whose basic eye movement benchmarks conform to the universal comparative science of reading (Share, 2008). We additionally report basic descriptive corpus statistics and three exploratory investigations of the effects of Russian morphology on the basic eye movement measures, which illustrate the kinds of questions that researchers can answer using the RSC. The annotated corpus is freely available from its project page at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/x5q2r/ .

Getting ahead of yourself: Parafoveal word expectancy modulates the N400 during sentence reading

An important question in the reading literature regards the nature of the semantic information readers can extract from the parafovea (i.e., the next word in a sentence). Recent eye-tracking findings have found a semantic parafoveal preview benefit under many circumstances, and findings from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) also suggest that readers can at least detect semantic anomalies parafoveally (Barber, Van der Meij, & Kutas, Psychophysiology, 50(1), 48-59, 2013). We use ERPs to ask whether fine-grained aspects of semantic expectancy can affect the N400 elicited by a word appearing in the parafovea. In an RSVP-with-flankers paradigm, sentences were presented word by word, flanked 2° bilaterally by the previous and upcoming words. Stimuli consisted of high constraint sentences that were identical up to the target word, which could be expected, unexpected but plausible, or anomalous, as well as low constraint sentences that were always completed with the most expected ending. Findings revealed an N400 effect to the target word when it appeared in the parafovea, which was graded with respect to the target's expectancy and congruency within the sentence context. Furthermore, when targets appeared at central fixation, this graded congruency effect was mitigated, suggesting that the semantic information gleaned from parafoveal vision functionally changes the semantic processing of those words when foveated.

Parafoveal preview effects from word N + 1 and word N + 2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis

The use of gaze-contingent display techniques to study reading has shown that readers attend not only the currently fixated word, but also the word to the right of the current fixation. However, a critical look at the literature shows that a number of questions cannot be readily answered from the available literature reviews on the topic. First, there is no consensus as to whether readers also attend the second word to the right of fixation. Second, it is not clear whether parafoveal processing is more efficient in languages such as Chinese. Third, it is not well understood whether the measured effects are confounded by the properties of the parafoveal mask. In the present study, we addressed these issues by performing a Bayesian meta-analysis of 93 experiments that used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, Cognitive Psychology, 7, 65-81. doi: 10.1016/0010-028590005-5 , 1975). We describe three main findings: (1) The advantage of previewing the second word to the right is modest in size and likely is not centered on zero; (2) Chinese readers do seem to make more efficient use of parafoveal processing, but this is mostly evident in gaze durations; and (3) there are interference effects associated with using different parafoveal masks that roughly increase when the mask is less word-like.

Syllabic tone articulation influences the identification and use of words during Chinese sentence reading: Evidence from ERP and eye movement recordings

In two experiments, we examined the contribution of articulation-specific features to visual word recognition during the reading of Chinese. In spoken Standard Chinese, a syllable with a full tone can be tone-neutralized through sound weakening and pitch contour change, and there are two types of two-character compound words with respect to their articulation variation. One type requires articulation of a full tone for each constituent character, and the other requires a full- and a neutral-tone articulation for the first and second characters, respectively. Words of these two types with identical first characters were selected and embedded in sentences. Native speakers of Standard Chinese were recruited to read the sentences. In Experiment 1, the individual words of a sentence were presented serially at a fixed pace while event-related potentials were recorded. This resulted in less-negative N100 and anterior N250 amplitudes and in more-negative N400 amplitudes when targets contained a neutral tone. Complete sentences were visible in Experiment 2, and eye movements were recorded while participants read. Analyses of oculomotor activity revealed shorter viewing durations and fewer refixations on-and fewer regressive saccades to-target words when their second syllable was articulated with a neutral rather than a full tone. Together, the results indicate that readers represent articulation-specific word properties, that these representations are routinely activated early during the silent reading of Chinese sentences, and that the representations are also used during later stages of word processing.

Patients with Mild Alzheimer's Disease Fail When Using Their Working Memory: Evidence from the Eye Tracking Technique

Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) develop progressive language, visuoperceptual, attentional, and oculomotor changes that can have an impact on their reading comprehension. However, few studies have examined reading behavior in AD, and none have examined the contribution of predictive cueing in reading performance. For this purpose we analyzed the eye movement behavior of 35 healthy readers (Controls) and 35 patients with probable AD during reading of regular and high-predictable sentences. The cloze predictability of words N - 1, and N + 1 exerted an influence on the reader's gaze duration. The predictabilities of preceding words in high-predictable sentences served as task-appropriate cues that were used by Control readers. In contrast, these effects were not present in AD patients. In Controls, changes in predictability significantly affected fixation duration along the sentence; noteworthy, these changes did not affect fixation durations in AD patients. Hence, only in healthy readers did predictability of upcoming words influence fixation durations via memory retrieval. Our results suggest that Controls used stored information of familiar texts for enhancing their reading performance and imply that contextual-word predictability, whose processing is proposed to require memory retrieval, only affected reading behavior in healthy subjects. In AD patients, this loss reveals impairments in brain areas such as those corresponding to working memory and memory retrieval. These findings might be relevant for expanding the options for the early detection and monitoring in the early stages of AD. Furthermore, evaluation of eye movements during reading could provide a new tool for measuring drug impact on patients' behavior.

Parafoveal preview effects from word N + 1 and word N + 2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis

The use of gaze-contingent display techniques to study reading has shown that readers attend not only the currently fixated word, but also the word to the right of the current fixation. However, a critical look at the literature shows that a number of questions cannot be readily answered from the available literature reviews on the topic. First, there is no consensus as to whether readers also attend the second word to the right of fixation. Second, it is not clear whether parafoveal processing is more efficient in languages such as Chinese. Third, it is not well understood whether the measured effects are confounded by the properties of the parafoveal mask. In the present study, we addressed these issues by performing a Bayesian meta-analysis of 93 experiments that used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, Cognitive Psychology, 7, 65-81. doi: 10.1016/0010-028590005-5 , 1975). We describe three main findings: (1) The advantage of previewing the second word to the right is modest in size and likely is not centered on zero; (2) Chinese readers do seem to make more efficient use of parafoveal processing, but this is mostly evident in gaze durations; and (3) there are interference effects associated with using different parafoveal masks that roughly increase when the mask is less word-like.

The effect of word frequency and parafoveal preview on saccade length during the reading of Chinese

There are currently 2 theoretical accounts of how readers of Chinese select their saccade targets: (a) by moving their eyes to specific saccade targets (i.e., the default-targeting hypothesis) and (b) by adjusting their saccade lengths to accommodate lexical processing (i.e., the dynamic-adjustment hypothesis). In this article, we first report the results of an eye-movement experiment using a gaze-contingent boundary paradigm. This experiment demonstrates that both target-word frequency and its preview validity modulate the lengths of the saccades entering and exiting the target words, with longer saccades to/from high-frequency words when their preview was available. We then report the results of 2 simulations using computational models that instantiate the core theoretical assumptions of the default-targeting and dynamic-adjustment hypotheses. Comparisons of these simulations indicate that the dynamic-adjustment hypothesis provides a better quantitative account of the data from our experiment using fewer free parameters. We conclude by discussing evidence for dynamic saccade adjustment during the reading of alphabetic languages, and why such a heuristic may be necessary to fully explain eye-movement control during the reading of both alphabetic and nonalphabetic languages. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reading proficiency modulates parafoveal processing efficiency: evidence from reading Chinese as a second language

In the present study, we manipulated different types of information available in the parafovea during the reading of Chinese sentences and examined how native Korean readers who learned Chinese as a second language make use of the parafoveal information. Results clearly indicate that, only identical and orthographically similar previews facilitated processing of the target words when they were subsequently fixated. More critically, more parafoveal information was obtained by subjects with higher reading proficiency. These results suggest that, mainly low-level features of the parafoveal words are obtained by the non-native Chinese readers and less attentional resources are available for the readers with lower reading proficiency, thereby causing a reduction of the perceptual span.

Attentional blink is hierarchically modulated by phonological, morphological, semantic and lexical connections between two Chinese characters

The ability to identify the second of two targets (T2) is impaired if that target is presented less than ∼500 ms after the first (T1). This transient deficit is known as attentional blink (AB). Previous studies have suggested that the magnitude of the AB effect can be modulated by manipulating the allocation of attentional resources to T1 or T2. However, few experiments have used Chinese characters and words to explore this phenomenon. The existence of lexical, semantic, phonological and morphological connections between Chinese characters has been well established, and understanding these connections may improve our knowledge of reading Chinese. In this study, we employed varying connections between T1 and T2 and examined how these connections modulate the AB effect. We found that the strongest AB was observed when the two Chinese characters were completely unrelated, while the AB was reduced when T1 and T2 were phonologically, orthographically or semantically related and was almost completely eliminated when T1 and T2 were united in a lexical phrase. The order of activation between Chinese characters was identified as follows: (a) lexical phrases, (b) semantic connection, (c) morphological connection, (d) phonological connection and (e) unrelated words.

Chinese deaf readers have early access to parafoveal semantics

In the present study, we manipulated different types of information available in the parafovea during the reading of Chinese sentences and examined how deaf readers make use of the parafoveal information. Results clearly indicate that although the reading-level matched hearing readers make greater use of orthographic information in the parafovea, parafoveal semantic information is obtained earlier among the deaf readers. In addition, a phonological preview benefit effect was found for the better deaf readers (relative to less-skilled deaf readers), although we also provide an alternative explanation for this effect. Providing evidence that Chinese deaf readers have higher efficiency when processing parafoveal semantics, the study indicates flexibility across individuals in the mechanisms underlying word recognition adapting to the inputs available in the linguistic environment.

Predicting raters' transparency judgments of English and Chinese morphological constituents using latent semantic analysis

The morphological constituents of English compounds (e.g., "butter" and "fly" for "butterfly") and two-character Chinese compounds may differ in meaning from the whole word. Subjective differences and ambiguity of transparency make judgments difficult, and a computational alternative based on a general model might be a way to average across subjective differences. In the present study, we propose two approaches based on latent semantic analysis (Landauer & Dumais in Psychological Review 104:211-240, 1997): Model 1 compares the semantic similarity between a compound word and each of its constituents, and Model 2 derives the dominant meaning of a constituent from a clustering analysis of morphological family members (e.g., "butterfingers" or "buttermilk" for "butter"). The proposed models successfully predicted participants' transparency ratings, and we recommend that experimenters use Model 1 for English compounds and Model 2 for Chinese compounds, on the basis of differences in raters' morphological processing in the different writing systems. The dominance of lexical meaning, semantic transparency, and the average similarity between all pairs within a morphological family are provided, and practical applications for future studies are discussed.