Word knowledge influences character perception

Towards a model of eye-movement control in Chinese reading

The Chinese writing system has several features that make it markedly different from the alphabetic systems that have most often been examined in reading research, including the fact that individual words consist of various uniformly sized, box-shaped characters whose boundaries are not clearly demarcated (e.g., by blank spaces). These features raise the question: How do readers of Chinese "know" where to move their eyes for the purpose of efficiently segmenting and/or identifying words? To answer this question, we used the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading to run an 'experiment' involving a series of simulations in which two saccade-targeting assumptions (i.e., directing the eyes towards default targets vs. adjusting saccade length as a function of parafoveal processing difficulty) were factorially manipulated with three word-segmentation heuristics (i.e., ideal-observer knowledge of word boundaries vs. probabilistic guessing vs. familiarity-based segmentation) to examine which combination of assumptions provide the best quantitative account of eye-movement control during the reading of Chinese. Based on these simulations, we conclude the best account is one in which readers use relative differences in the familiarity of groups of parafoveal characters to dynamically adjust the lengths of saccades in a manner that affords efficient word identification. We discuss the broader theoretical implications of these conclusions for models of Chinese reading and for models of reading more generally.

GECO-CN: Ghent Eye-tracking COrpus of sentence reading for Chinese-English bilinguals

The current work presents the very first eye-tracking corpus of natural reading by Chinese-English bilinguals, whose two languages entail different writing systems and orthographies. Participants read an entire novel in these two languages, presented in paragraphs on screen. Half of the participants first read half of the novel in their native language (Simplified Chinese) and then the rest of the novel in their second language (English), while the other half read in the reverse language order. This article presents some important basic descriptive statistics of reading times and compares the difference between reading in the two languages. However, this unique eye-tracking corpus also allows the exploration of theories of language processing and bilingualism. Importantly, it provides a solid and reliable ground for studying the difference between Eastern and Western languages, understanding the impact and consequences of having a completely different first language on bilingual processing. The materials are freely available for use by researchers interested in (bilingual) reading.

Visual word processing efficiency for Chinese characters and English words

The Word Superiority Effect (WSE) refers to the phenomenon where a single letter is recognized more accurately when presented within a word, compared to when it is presented alone or in a random string. However, previous research has produced conflicting findings regarding whether this effect also occurs in the processing of Chinese characters. The current study employed the capacity coefficient, a measure derived from the Systems Factorial Technology framework, to investigate processing efficiency and test for the superiority effect in Chinese characters and English words. We hypothesized that WSE would result in more efficient processing of characters/words compared to their individual components, as reflected by super capacity processing. However, contrary to our predictions, results from both the "same" (Experiment 1) and "different" (Experiment 2) judgment tasks revealed that native Chinese speakers exhibited limited processing capacity (inefficiency) for both English words and Chinese characters. In addition, results supported an English WSE with participants integrating English words and pseudowords more efficiently than nonwords, and decomposing nonwords more efficiently than words and pseudowords. In contrast, no superiority effect was observed for Chinese characters. To conclude, the current work suggests that the superiority effect only applies to English processing efficiency with specific context rules and does not extend to Chinese characters.

Orthography influences spoken word production in blocked cyclic naming

Does the way a word is written influence its spoken production? Previous studies suggest that orthography is involved only when the orthographic representation is highly relevant during speaking (e.g., in reading-aloud tasks). To address this issue, we carried out two experiments using the blocked cyclic picture-naming paradigm. In both experiments, participants were asked to name pictures repeatedly in orthographically homogeneous or heterogeneous blocks. In the naming task, the written form was not shown; however, the radical of the first character overlapped between the four pictures in this block type. A facilitative orthographic effect was found when picture names shared part of their written forms, compared with the heterogeneous condition. This facilitative effect was independent of the position of orthographic overlap (i.e., the left, the lower, or the outer part of the character). These findings strongly suggest that orthography can influence speaking even when it is not highly relevant (i.e., during picture naming) and the orthographic effect is less likely to be attributed to strategic preparation.

The Trade-Off Between Format Familiarity and Word-Segmentation Facilitation in Chinese Reading

In alphabetic writing systems (such as English), the spaces between words mark the word boundaries, and the basic unit of reading is distinguished during visual-level processing. The visual-level information of word boundaries facilitates reading. Chinese is an ideographic language whose text contains no intrinsic inter-word spaces as the marker of word boundaries. Previous studies have shown that the basic processing unit of Chinese reading is also a word. However, findings remain inconsistent regarding whether inserting spaces between words in Chinese text promotes reading performance. Researchers have proposed that there may be a trade-off between format familiarity and the facilitation effect of inter-word spaces. In order to verify this, this study manipulated the format familiarity via reversing the Chinese reading direction from right to left to investigate this issue in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to examine whether inter-word spaces facilitated Chinese reading in an unfamiliar format. Experiment 1 was conducted that 40 native Chinese undergraduates read Chinese sentences from right to left on four format conditions. The results showed faster reading speed and shorter total reading time for the inter-word spaced format. Based on this finding, Experiment 2 examined whether the facilitation effect of inter-word spaces would reduce or disappear after improving the format familiarity; this experiment was conducted that 40 native Chinese undergraduates who did not participate in Experiment 1 read Chinese sentences from right to left on four format conditions after ten-day reading training. There was no significant difference between the total reading time and reading speed in the inter-word spaced format and unspaced format, which suggests that the facilitation effect of inter-word spaces in Chinese reading changed smaller. The combined results of the two experiments suggest that there is indeed a trade-off between format familiarity and the facilitation of word segmentation, which supports the assumption of previous studies.

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 effect of contextual diversity on eye movements in Chinese sentence reading

Recent studies have demonstrated that when contextual diversity is controlled token word frequency has minimal effects on visual word recognition. With the exception of a single experiment by Plummer, Perea, & Rayner (2014, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 275-283), those studies have examined words in isolation. The current studies address two potential limitations of the Plummer et al. experiment. First, because Plummer et al. used different sentence frames for words in different conditions, the effects might be due to uncontrolled differences on the sentences. Second, the absence of a frequency effect might be attributed to comparing higher and lower frequency words within a limited range. Three eye-tracking experiments examined effects of contextual diversity and frequency on Mandarin Chinese, a logographic language, for words embedded in the normal sentences. In Experiment 1, yoked words were rotated through the same sentence frame. Experiments 2a and 2b used a design similar to Plummer et al., which allows use of a larger sample of words to compare results between experiments with a smaller and larger difference in log frequency (0.41 and 1.06, respectively). In all three experiments, first-pass and later eye movement measures were significantly shorter for targets with higher contextual diversity than for targets with lower contextual diversity, with no effects of frequency.

Optimal viewing position effects in the processing of isolated Chinese words

Previous studies have found that words are identified most quickly when the eyes fixate near the word center (the Optimal Viewing Position, OVP) in alphabetic languages. Two experiments were performed to determine the presence of OVP effects during the processing of isolated Chinese words. Participants' eye movements were recorded while they performed a lexical decision task. The results suggest that Chinese readers exhibit OVP effects and that the OVP tends to be the first character for 2-character words. For 3- and 4-character words, the OVP effects appear as a U-shaped curve with a minimum towards the second character. As fixations deviate from the OVP, word processing times increase at a rate of 30-70 ms per character, and fixation duration is strongly influenced by the initial viewing position. Moreover, the present study did not observe an I-OVP effect for first fixation durations nor a fixation-duration trade-off in two-fixation cases in the case of isolated Chinese words processing.

Dividing lines at the word boundary position helps reading in Chinese

Unlike in English, the Chinese printing and writing systems usually do not respect a word boundary when they split lines; thus, characters belonging to a word can be on two different lines. In this study, we examined whether dividing a word across two lines interferes with Chinese reading and found that reading times were shorter when characters belonging to a word were on a single line rather than on adjacent lines. Eye movement data indicated that gaze durations in a region around the word boundary were longer and fixations were closer to the beginnings and ends of the lines when words were split across lines. These results suggest that words are processed as a whole in Chinese reading, so that word boundaries should be respected when deciding how to split lines in the Chinese writing system. They also suggest that the length of return sweeps in reading can be cognitively guided.

Do Chinese readers follow the national standard rules for word segmentation during reading?

We conducted a preliminary study to examine whether Chinese readers’ spontaneous word segmentation processing is consistent with the national standard rules of word segmentation based on the Contemporary Chinese language word segmentation specification for information processing (CCLWSSIP). Participants were asked to segment Chinese sentences into individual words according to their prior knowledge of words. The results showed that Chinese readers did not follow the segmentation rules of the CCLWSSIP, and their word segmentation processing was influenced by the syntactic categories of consecutive words. In many cases, the participants did not consider the auxiliary words, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, verbs, numerals and quantifiers as single word units. Generally, Chinese readers tended to combine function words with content words to form single word units, indicating they were inclined to chunk single words into large information units during word segmentation. Additionally, the “overextension of monosyllable words” hypothesis was tested and it might need to be corrected to some degree, implying that word length have an implicit influence on Chinese readers’ segmentation processing. Implications of these results for models of word recognition and eye movement control are discussed.

Inserting spaces before and after words affects word processing differently in Chinese: Evidence from eye movements

Unlike in English, there are no spaces between printed words in Chinese. In this study, we explored how inserting a space before or after a word affects the processing of that word in Chinese reading. Native Chinese readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences with different presentation conditions. The results show that inserting a space after a word facilitates its processing, but inserting a space before a word does not show this effect and inhibits the processing of that word in some cases. Our results are consistent with the prediction of a word segmentation and recognition model in Chinese Li et al., 2009, Cognit. Psychol., 58, 525. Additionally, we found that a space guides the initial landing position on the word: the initial landing position was further away from the space that inserted into the text, whether it was before or after a word.

Word properties of a fixated region affect outgoing saccade length in Chinese reading

In two experiments, we investigated how forward saccades are targeted in Chinese reading. In Experiment 1, the critical region was a 4-character string which was either a word (one-word condition) or two 2-character word phrases (two-word condition). In Experiment 2, the critical region was either a high frequency word or a low frequency word. The outgoing saccade length from the last fixation on the critical region was longer in the one-word condition than the two-word condition in Experiment 1 and was longer in the high frequency condition than in the low frequency condition in Experiment 2. These results indicate that the properties of words in a fixated region affect the length of the outgoing saccade. We propose a processing-based strategy for saccade target selection in Chinese reading in which readers estimate how many characters they can process on each fixation, and then program their next saccade so that the eyes fixate somewhere beyond them. As a consequence, the easier the processing of the fixated region is, the longer the outgoing saccade is.