Readers extract character frequency information from nonfixated-target word at long pretarget fixations during Chinese reading

Compositionality of the Constituent Characters in Chinese Two-Character-Word Recognition by Adult Readers of High and Low Chinese Proficiency

In Chinese, the graphic units are Chinese characters, most of which are compound characters. Since a compound character can be different from another one in being regarded as composed of components (compositionality), readers might have developed a compositionality awareness of the constituent characters in two-character word (2C-word) recognition. Two experiments were conducted in a lexical decision task on the same set of 2C-words, the first constituent characters of which were manipulated in compositionality. Given that a Chinese character is more difficult to recognize when it is presented upside-down than when it is presented in an upright orientation and that it is inevitable to perceive the constituent characters in 2C-word recognition, we manipulated the first constituent characters' presentation orientation to increase the task difficulty. The two constituent characters of a 2C-word target were displayed simultaneously in a trial in Experiment 1 but were shown sequentially in Experiment 2. Participants were two cohorts of adult Chinese native speakers (CNS1s and CNS2s). CNS1s had a significantly lower level of reading proficiency than CNS2s. The influence of orientation was observed in both CNS1s and CNS2s' performance across the two experiments, but only CNS2s' reaction times seemed to have indicated the effect of compositionality in Experiment 2. Skilled readers are more likely than less skilled readers to be conscious of compositionality of the first constituent characters, which are presented separately from the second ones, in 2C-word recognition.

Compound word frequency modifies the effect of character frequency in reading Chinese

In two eye-tracking studies, reading of two-character Chinese compound words was examined. First and second character frequency were orthogonally manipulated to examine the extent to which Chinese compound words are processed via the component characters. In Experiment 1, first and second character frequency were manipulated for frequent compound words, whereas in Experiment 2 it was done for infrequent compound words. Fixation time and skipping probability for the first and second character were affected by its frequency in neither experiment, nor in their pooled analysis. Yet, in Experiment 2 fixations on the second character were longer when a high-frequency character was presented as the first character compared with when a low-frequency character was presented as the first character. This reversed character frequency effect reflects a morphological family size effect and is explained by the constraint hypothesis, according to which fixation time on the second component of two-component compound words is shorter when its identity is constrained by the first component. It is concluded that frequent Chinese compound words are processed holistically, whereas with infrequent compound words there is some room for the characters to play a role in the identification process.

Word's Contextual Predictability and Its Character Frequency Effects in Chinese Reading: Evidence From Eye Movements

The present study sought to establish how a word's contextual predictability impacts the early stages of word processing when reading Chinese. Two eye-movement experiments were conducted in which the predictability of the target two-character word was manipulated; the frequency of the target's initial character was manipulated in Experiment 1, as was the target's end character frequency in Experiment 2. No reliable interaction effect of predictability with initial character frequency was observed in Experiment 1. Reliable interactions of word predictability with end character frequency were observed in Experiment 2. The end character frequency effects, in which the words with high-frequency end characters were fixated for a shorter time and re-fixated less often, were only observed when reading unpredictable words. Reliable interactions were also observed with incoming saccade length, as high-frequency end character words elicited longer saccades to themselves than low-frequency end character words when reading predictable words. The effects of pervasive predictability on measures of fixation time, probability, and saccade length were noted in both experiments. Our findings suggest that a word's contextual predictability facilitates the processing of its constituent characters.

The modulation of eye movement control by word length in reading Chinese

Given there are no interword spaces marking word boundaries in Chinese text, it remains unclear how information about word length influences eye movement control during the reading of Chinese text. In this research, we set up strict controls for word frequency and other word properties, to study this knowledge gap. In Experiment 1A and Experiment 1B, a between-subjects design was used. Forty-eight pairs of one- and two-character words were selected as target words in Experiment 1A, while the same amount of two- and three-character words were selected in Experiment 1B. Conversely, a within-subjects design was used in Experiment 2. Sixty sets of one-, two- and three-character words were selected as target words. The results showed that long words were skipped less often and fixated on more often than short words. Total time was shorter for shorter than for longer words but first fixation durations were longer for one- than for two-character words. Most importantly, we did not find reliable evidence to support the view that word length could modulate initial landing position and incoming saccade length in the length-matched region analyses. These findings suggest that word length influences eye movement control during reading Chinese in a way that is slightly different from that in the process of reading English.

Eye-Movement Evidence for Object-Based Attention in Chinese Reading

Is attention allocated to only one word or to multiple words at any given time during reading? The experiments reported here addressed this question using a novel paradigm inspired by classic findings on object-based attention. In Experiment 1, participants ( N = 18) made lexical decisions about one of two spatially colocated Chinese words or nonwords. Our main finding was that only the attended word's frequency influenced response times and accuracy. In Experiment 2, participants ( N = 30) read target words embedded in two spatially colocated Chinese sentences. Our key finding here was that only target-word frequencies influenced looking times and fixation positions. These results support the hypothesis that words are attended in a strictly serial (and perhaps object-based) manner during reading. The theoretical implications of this conclusion are discussed in relation to models of eye-movement control during reading and the conceptualization of words as visual objects.

Effects of adults aging on word encoding in reading Chinese: evidence from disappearing text

The effect of aging on the process of word encoding for fixated words and words presented to the right of the fixation point during the reading of sentences in Chinese was investigated with two disappearing text experiments. The results of Experiment 1 showed that only the 40-ms onset disappearance of word n disrupted young adults' reading performance. However, for old readers, the disappearance of word n caused disruptions until the onset time was 120 ms. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the disappearance of word n + 1 did not cause disruptions to young adults, but these conditions made old readers spend more time reading a sentence compared to the normal display condition. These results indicated a reliable aging effect on the process of word encoding when reading Chinese, and that the encoding process in the preview frame was more susceptible to normal aging compared to that in the fixation frame. We propose that sensory, cognitive, and specific factors related to the Chinese language are important contributors to these age-related differences.