EyeLink Clinical and Oculomotor Eye-Tracking Publications
EyeLink clinical and oculomotor research publications up until 2023 (with some early 2024s) are listed below by year. You can search the publications using keywords such as Saccadic Adaptation, Schizophrenia, Nystagmus, etc. You can also search for individual author names, and limit searches by year (choose the year then click the search button). If we missed any EyeLink clinical or oculomotor articles, please email us!
2023 |
Jinger Pan; Ming Yan The perceptual span in traditional Chinese Journal Article In: Language and Cognition, pp. 1–14, 2023. @article{Pan2023, The present study aimed at examining the perceptual span, the visual field area for information extraction within a single fixation, during the reading of traditional Chinese sentences. Native traditional Chinese readers' eye-movements were recorded as they read sentences that were presented using a gaze-contingent technique, in which legible text was restricted within a window that moved in synchrony with the eyes, while characters outside the window were masked. Comparisons of the window conditions with a baseline condition in which no viewing constraint was applied showed that when the window revealed one previous character and three upcoming characters around the current fixation, reading speed and oculomotor activities reached peak performance. Compared to previous results with simplified Chinese reading, based on a similar set of materials, traditional Chinese exhibits a reduction of the perceptual span. We suggest that the visual complexity of a writing system likely influences the perceptual span during reading. |
Yali Pan; Tzvetan Popov; Steven Frisson; Ole Jensen Saccades are locked to the phase of alpha oscillations during natural reading Journal Article In: PLoS Biology, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 1–19, 2023. @article{Pan2023b, AU We:saccade Pleaseconfirmthatallheadinglevelsarerepresentedcorrectly 3 to 5 times per second when reading. However,:little is known about the neuronal mechanisms coordinating the oculomotor and visual system during such rapid processing. Here, we ask if brain oscillations play a role in the temporal coordination of the visuomotor integration. We simultaneously acquired MEG and eye-tracking data while participants read sentences silently. Every sentence was embedded with a target word of either high or low lexical frequency. Our key finding demonstrated that saccade onsets were locked to the phase of alpha oscillations (8 to 13 Hz), and in particular, for saccades towards low frequency words. Source modelling demonstrated that the alpha oscillations to which the saccades were locked, were generated in the right-visual motor cortex (BA 7). Our findings suggest that the alpha oscillations serve to time the processing between the oculomotor and visual systems during natural reading, and that this coordination becomes more pronounced for demanding words. |
Adam J. Parker; Milla Räsänen; Timothy J. Slattery What is the optimal position of low-frequency words across line boundaries? An eye movement investigation Journal Article In: Applied Cognitive Psychology, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 161–173, 2023. @article{Parker2023, When displaying text on a page or a screen, only a finite number of characters can be presented on a single line. If the text exceeds that finite value, then text wrapping occurs. Often this process results in longer, more difficult to process words being positioned at the start of a line. We conducted an eye movement study to examine how this artefact of text wrapping affects passage reading. This allowed us to answer the question: should word difficulty be used when determining line breaks? Thirty-nine participants read 20 passages where low-frequency target words were either line-initial or line-final. There was no statistically reliable effect of our manipulation on passage reading time or comprehension despite several effects at a local level. Regarding our primary research question, the evidence suggests that word difficulty may not need to be accounted for when determining line breaks and assigning words to new lines. |
Olga Parshina; Nina Zdorova; Victor Kuperman Cross-linguistic comparison in reading sentences of uniform length: Visual–perceptual demands override readers' experience Journal Article In: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, pp. 1–9, 2023. @article{Parshina2023, Accurate saccadic targeting is critical for efficient reading and is driven by the sensory input under the eye-gaze. Yet whether a reader's experience with the distributional properties of their written language also influences saccadic targeting is an open debate. This study of Russian sentence reading follows Cutter et al.'s (2017) study in English and presents readers with sentences consisting of words of the same length. We hypothesised that if the readers' experience matters as per discrete control account, Russian readers would produce longer saccades and farther landing positions than the ones produced by English readers. On the contrary, if the saccadic targeting is primarily driven by the immediate perceptual demands that override readers' experience as per the dynamic adjustment account, the saccades of Russian and English readers would be of the same length, resulting in similar landing positions. The results in both Cutter et al. and the present study provided evidence for the latter account: Russian readers showed rapid and accurate adjustment of saccade lengths and landing positions to the highly constrained input. Crucially, the saccade lengths and landing positions did not differ between English and Russian readers even in the cross-linguistically length-matched stimuli. |
Marco Pedrotti; Anne Françoise Chambrier; Paolo Ruggeri; Jasinta Dewi; Myrto Atzemian; Catherine Thevenot; Catherine Martinet; Philippe Terrier Raw eye tracking data of healthy adults reading aloud words, pseudowords and numerals Journal Article In: Data in Brief, vol. 49, pp. 1–6, 2023. @article{Pedrotti2023, This paper describes data from de Chambrier et al. (2023). The dataset [2] contains raw eye tracking data of 36 healthy adults, collected using an EyeLink 1000 (SR Research Ltd., ON, Canada) during an on-screen reading task. Participants read 96 items including words, pseudowords and numerals. Each item was presented at the center of the screen until the participant produced an oral response and pressed the keyboard's space bar. Part of the data were analyzed to extract key metrics such as fixation number, fixation duration, saccade number, and saccade amplitude identified by the EyeLink 1000 [1]. Reuse potential includes (but is not limited to) pupil diameter data analysis, identification of fixations and saccades using custom algorithms, and secondary analyses using participant demographics (age, gender) as independent variables. |
Maud Pélissier; Dag Haugland; Bjørn Handeland; Beatrice Zitong Urland; Allison Wetterlin; Linda Wheeldon; Steven Frisson Competition between form-related words in bilingual sentence reading: Effects of language proficiency Journal Article In: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 384–401, 2023. @article{Pelissier2023, Sentence reading involves constant competition between lexical candidates. Previous research with monolinguals has shown that the neighbours of a read word are inhibited, making their retrieval as a subsequent target more difficult, but the duration of this interference may depend on reading skills. In this study, we examined neighbour priming effects in sentence reading among proficient Norwegian–English bilinguals reading in their L2. We investigated the effects of the distance between prime and target (short vs. long) and the nature of the overlap between the two words (beginning or end), and related these to differences in individual cognitive skills. Our results replicated the inhibition effects found in monolinguals, albeit slightly delayed. Interference between form-related words was affected by the L2 reading skills and, crucially, by the phonological decoding abilities of the bilingual reader. We discuss the results in light of competition models of bilingual reading as well as episodic memory accounts. |
A. I. Pérez; E. Schmidt; I. M. Tsimpli Inferential evaluation and revision in L1 and L2 text comprehension: An eye movement study Journal Article In: Bilingualism, pp. 1–14, 2023. @article{Perez2023, Text comprehension frequently demands the resolution of no longer plausible interpretations to build an accurate situation model, an ability that might be especially challenging during second language comprehension. Twenty-two native English speakers (L1) and twenty-two highly proficient non-native English speakers (L2) were presented with short narratives in English. Each text required the evaluation and revision of an initial prediction. Eye movements in the text and a comprehension sentence indicated less efficient performance in the L2 than in L1 comprehension, in both inferential evaluation and revision. Interestingly, these effects were determined by individual differences in inhibitory control and linguistic proficiency. Higher inhibitory control reduced the time rereading previous parts of the text (better evaluation) as well as revisiting the text before answering the sentence (better revision) in L2 comprehenders, whereas higher proficiency reduced the time in the sentence when the story was coherent, suggesting better general comprehension in both languages. |
Katharina Pittrich; Sascha Schroeder Reading vertically and horizontally mirrored text: An eye movement investigation Journal Article In: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 76, no. 2, pp. 271–283, 2023. @article{Pittrich2023, This study examined the cognitive processes involved in reading vertically and horizontally mirrored text. We tracked participants' eye movements while they were reading the Potsdam Sentence Corpus which consists of 144 sentences with target words that are manipulated for length and frequency. Sentences were presented in three different conditions: In the normal condition, text was presented with upright letters, in the vertical condition, each letter was flipped around its vertical (left-right) axis while in the horizontal condition, letters were flipped around their horizontal (up-down) axis. Results show that reading was slowed down in both mirror conditions and that horizontal mirroring was particularly disruptive. In both conditions, we found larger effects of word length than in the normal condition indicating that participants read the sentences more serially and effortfully. Similarly, frequency effects were larger in both mirror conditions in later reading measures (gaze duration, go-past time, and total reading time) and particularly pronounced in the horizontal condition. This indicates that reading mirrored script involves a late checking mechanism that is particularly important for reading a horizontally mirrored script. Together, our findings demonstrate that mirroring affects both early visual identification and later linguistic processes. |
Sotiris Plainis; Emmanouil Ktistakis; Miltiadis K. Tsilimbaris Presbyopia correction with multifocal contact lenses: Evaluation of silent reading performance using eye movements analysis Journal Article In: Contact Lens and Anterior Eye, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 1–8, 2023. @article{Plainis2023, Purpose: Many activities of daily living rely on reading, thus is not surprising that complaints from presbyopes originate in reading difficulties rather in visual acuity. Here, the effectiveness of presbyopia correction with multifocal contact lenses (CLs) is evaluated using an eye-fixation based method of silent reading performance. Μethods: Visual performance of thirty presbyopic volunteers (age: 50 ± 5 yrs) was assessed monocularly and binocularly following 15 days of wear of monthly disposable CLs (AIR OPTIX™ plus HydraGlyde™, Alcon Laboratories) with: (a) single vision (SV) lenses – uncorrected for near (b) aspheric multifocal (MF) CLs. LogMAR acuity was measured with ETDRS charts. Reading performance was evaluated using standard IReST paragraphs displayed on a screen (0.4 logMAR print size at 40 cm distance). Eye movements were monitored with an infrared eyetracker (Eye-Link II, SR Research Ltd). Data analysis included computation of reading speed, fixation duration, fixations per word and percentage of regressions. Results: Average reading speed was 250 ± 68 and 235 ± 70 wpm, binocularly and monocularly, with SV CLs, improving statistically significantly to 280 ± 67 (p = 0.002) and 260 ± 59 wpm (p = 0.01), respectively, with MF CLs. Moreover, fixation duration, fixations per word and ex-Gaussian parameter of fixation duration, μ, showed a statistically significant improvement when reading with MF CLs, with fixation duration exhibiting the stronger correlation (r = 0.79, p < 0.001) with improvement in reading speed. The correlation between improvement in VA and reading speed was moderate (r = 0.46 |
Florian Hintz; Cesko C. Voeten; Odette Scharenborg Recognizing non-native spoken words in background noise increases interference from the native language Journal Article In: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 1549–1563, 2023. @article{Hintz2023, Listeners frequently recognize spoken words in the presence of background noise. Previous research has shown that noise reduces phoneme intelligibility and hampers spoken-word recognition – especially for non-native listeners. In the present study, we investigated how noise influences lexical competition in both the non-native and the native language, reflecting the degree to which both languages are co-activated. We recorded the eye movements of native Dutch participants as they listened to English sentences containing a target word while looking at displays containing four objects. On target-present trials, the visual referent depicting the target word was present, along with three unrelated distractors. On target-absent trials, the target object (e.g., wizard) was absent. Instead, the display contained an English competitor, overlapping with the English target in phonological onset (e.g., window), a Dutch competitor, overlapping with the English target in phonological onset (e.g., wimpel, pennant), and two unrelated distractors. Half of the sentences was masked by speech-shaped noise; the other half was presented in quiet. Compared to speech in quiet, noise delayed fixations to the target objects on target-present trials. For target-absent trials, we observed that the likelihood for fixation biases towards the English and Dutch onset competitors (over the unrelated distractors) was larger in noise than in quiet. Our data thus show that the presence of background noise increases lexical competition in the task-relevant non-native (English) and in the task-irrelevant native (Dutch) language. The latter reflects stronger interference of one's native language during non-native spoken-word recognition under adverse conditions. |
Nora Hollenstein; Marius Tröndle; Martyna Plomecka; Samuel Kiegeland; Yilmazcan Özyurt; Lena A. Jäger; Nicolas Langer The ZuCo benchmark on cross-subject reading task classification with EEG and eye-tracking data Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, pp. 1–20, 2023. @article{Hollenstein2023, We present a new machine learning benchmark for reading task classification with the goal of advancing EEG and eye-tracking research at the intersection between computational language processing and cognitive neuroscience. The benchmark task consists of a cross-subject classification to distinguish between two reading paradigms: normal reading and task-specific reading. The data for the benchmark is based on the Zurich Cognitive Language Processing Corpus (ZuCo 2.0), which provides simultaneous eye-tracking and EEG signals from natural reading of English sentences. The training dataset is publicly available, and we present a newly recorded hidden testset. We provide multiple solid baseline methods for this task and discuss future improvements. We release our code and provide an easy-to-use interface to evaluate new approaches with an accompanying public leaderboard: www.zuco-benchmark.com. |
Holger Hopp; Sarah Schimke; Freya Gastmann; David Öwerdieck; Gregory J. Poarch Processing to learn noncanonical word orders: Exploring linguistic and cognitive predictors of reanalysis in early L2 sentence comprehension Journal Article In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition, pp. 1–24, 2023. @article{Hopp2023, To test the contributions of processing to L2 syntax learning, this study explores (cross-) linguistic and cognitive predictors of sentence reanalysis in the L2 comprehension of relative clauses among low-intermediate L1 German adolescent learners of L2 English. Specifically, we test the degree to which L2 comprehension is affected by L2 proficiency, reanalysis ability in a related, earlier-acquired L2 structure (questions), reanalysis ability of relative clauses in the L1, cognitive control, and cognitive capacity. In visual-world eye-tracking experiments, 141 adolescent German-speaking L2 learners of English selected target pictures for auditorily presented questions and relative clauses in the L1 and in the L2. The results showed a strong subject preference for L2 relative clauses. Learners' L2 proficiency and their processing of object questions in the L2 predicted reanalysis for object relatives in eye movements, reaction times, and comprehension accuracy. In contrast, there was no evidence that cognitive control or working memory systematically affected the processing of object relatives. These findings suggest that linguistic processing outweighs cognitive processing in accounting for individual differences in low-intermediate L2 acquisition of complex grammar. Specifically, learners recruit shared processing mechanisms and routines across grammatical structures to pave a way in the acquisition of syntax. |
Jannat Hossain; Alex L. White The transposed word effect is consistent with serial word recognition and varies with reading speed Journal Article In: Cognition, vol. 238, pp. 1–11, 2023. @article{Hossain2023, The scientific study of reading has long been animated by questions of parallel vs. serial processing. Do readers recognize words serially, adding each one sequentially to a representation of the sentence structure? One fascinating phenomenon to emerge from this research is the transposed word effect: when asked to judge whether sentences are grammatical, readers often fail to notice grammatical errors caused by transposing two words. This effect could be evidence that readers recognize multiple words in parallel. Here we provide converging evidence that the transposed word effect is also consistent with serial processing because it occurs robustly when the words in each sentence are presented serially. We further investigated how the effect relates to individual differences in reading speed, to gaze fixation patterns, and to differences in difficulty across sentences. In a pretest, we first measured the natural English reading rate of 37 participants, which varied widely. In a subsequent grammatical decision task, we presented grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in two modes: one with all words presented simultaneously, and the other with single words presented sequentially at each participant's natural rate. Unlike prior studies that used a fixed sequential presentation rate, we found that the magnitude of the transposed word effect was at least as strong in the sequential presentation mode as in the simultaneous mode, for both error rates and response times. Moreover, faster readers were more likely to miss transpositions of words presented sequentially. We argue that these data favor a “noisy channel” model of comprehension in which skilled readers rely on prior knowledge to rapidly infer the meaning of sentences, allowing for apparent errors in spatial or temporal order, even when the individual words are recognized one at a time. |
Liv J. Hoversten; Clara D. Martin Parafoveal processing in bilingual readers: Semantic access within but not across languages Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 49, no. 12, pp. 1564–1578, 2023. @article{Hoversten2023, Prior research has investigated the quality of information a reader can extract from upcoming parafoveal words. However, very few studies have considered parafoveal processing in bilingual readers, who may differ from monolinguals due to slower lexical access and susceptibility to cross-language activation. This eye-tracking experiment, therefore, investigated how bilingual readers process parafoveal semantic information within and across languages. We used the boundary technique to replace a preview word in a sentence with a different target word during the first rightward saccade from the pretarget region. We manipulated both preview language (nonswitch vs. code-switch) and semantic relatedness (synonym/translation vs. unrelated) between previews and targets. Upon fixation, target words always appeared in the same language as the rest of the sentence to create an essentially monolingual language context. Semantic preview benefits emerged for nonswitched synonym previews but not for code-switched translation previews. Furthermore, participants skipped code-switched previews less often than nonswitched previews and no more often than previews that were unfamiliar to them. These data suggest that bilinguals can extract within-language semantic information from the parafovea in both native and nonnative languages, but that cross-language words are not accessible while reading in a monolingual language mode, as per the partial selectivity hypothesis of bilingual language control. |
Pei Hsuan Hsieh; Po I. Hsu Displaying software installation agreements to motivate users' reading Journal Article In: International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 39, no. 20, pp. 4006–4023, 2023. @article{Hsieh2023a, The purpose of this study is to identify an effective display mode that best motivates software users to read the software installation agreements before downloading, thereby enhancing their understanding of intellectual property rights and preventing potential legal issues. This study randomly assigned the participants to enter either an eye-tracking or a computer-based experiment in which one of three display modes was presented. A computer-based pre-test and post-test related to intellectual property rights were given to the participants. The final results showed that the “keyword mode” was the most effective in keeping their attention on the key content. The results of a survey about software installation experiences and attitudes toward reading software installation agreements and the follow-up interviews confirmed the experimental findings. The study's contribution lies in revealing to software providers the most effective reading mode that best enhances the software users' understanding of the moral and legal concepts. |
Scott S. Hsieh; David A. Cook; Akitoshi Inoue; Hao Gong; Parvathy Sudhir Pillai; Matthew P. Johnson; Shuai Leng; Lifeng Yu; Jeff L. Fidler; David R. Holmes Iii; Rickey E. Carter; Cynthia H. Mccollough; Joel G. Fletcher Understanding reader variability: A 25-radiologist study on liver metastasis detection at CT Journal Article In: Radiology, vol. 306, no. 2, pp. 1–10, 2023. @article{Hsieh2023, Background: Substantial interreader variability exists for common tasks in CT imaging, such as detection of hepatic metastases. This variability can undermine patient care by leading to misdiagnosis. Purpose: To determine the impact of interreader variability associated with (a) reader experience, (b) image navigation patterns (eg, eye movements, workstation interactions), and (c) eye gaze time at missed liver metastases on contrast-enhanced abdominal CT images. Materials and Methods: In a single-center prospective observational trial at an academic institution between December 2020 and February 2021, readers were recruited to examine 40 contrast-enhanced abdominal CT studies (eight normal, 32 containing 91 liver metastases). Readers circumscribed hepatic metastases and reported confidence. The workstation tracked image navigation and eye movements. Performance was quantified by using the area under the jackknife alternative free-response receiver operator charac- teristic (JAFROC-1) curve and per-metastasis sensitivity and was associated with reader experience and image navigation variables. Differences in area under JAFROC curve were assessed with the Kruskal-Wallis test followed by the Dunn test, and effects of image navigation were assessed by using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: Twenty-five readers (median age, 38 years; IQR, 31–45 years; 19 men) were recruited and included nine subspecialized abdominal radiologists, five nonabdominal staff radiologists, and 11 senior residents or fellows. Reader experience explained differences in area under the JAFROC curve, with abdominal radiologists demonstrating greater area under the JAFROC curve (mean, 0.77; 95% CI: 0.75, 0.79) than trainees (mean, 0.71; 95% CI: 0.69, 0.73) (P = .02) or nonabdominal subspecialists (mean, 0.69; 95% CI: 0.60, 0.78) (P = .03). Sensitivity was similar within the reader experience groups (P = .96). Image navigation variables that were associated with higher sensitivity included longer interpretation time (P = .003) and greater use of coronal images (P < .001). The eye gaze time was at least 0.5 and 2.0 seconds for 71% (266 of 377) and 40% (149 of 377) of missed metastases, respectively. Conclusion: Abdominal radiologists demonstrated better discrimination for the detection of liver metastases on abdominal contrast-enhanced CT images. Missed metastases frequently received at least a brief eye gaze. Higher sensitivity was associated with longer interpretation time and greater use of liver display windows and coronal images. |
Jinfeng Huang; Gaoyan Zhang; Jianwu Dang; Yu Chen; Shoko Miyamoto Semantic processing during continuous speech production: An analysis from eye movements and EEG Journal Article In: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 17, pp. 1–13, 2023. @article{Huang2023c, Introduction: Speech production involves neurological planning and articulatory execution. How speakers prepare for articulation is a significant aspect of speech production research. Previous studies have focused on isolated words or short phrases to explore speech planning mechanisms linked to articulatory behaviors, including investigating the eye-voice span (EVS) during text reading. However, these experimental paradigms lack real-world speech process replication. Additionally, our understanding of the neurological dimension of speech planning remains limited. Methods: This study examines speech planning mechanisms during continuous speech production by analyzing behavioral (eye movement and speech) and neurophysiological (EEG) data within a continuous speech production task. The study specifically investigates the influence of semantic consistency on speech planning and the occurrence of “look ahead” behavior. Results: The outcomes reveal the pivotal role of semantic coherence in facilitating fluent speech production. Speakers access lexical representations and phonological information before initiating speech, emphasizing the significance of semantic processing in speech planning. Behaviorally, the EVS decreases progressively during continuous reading of regular sentences, with a slight increase for non-regular sentences. Moreover, eye movement pattern analysis identifies two distinct speech production modes, highlighting the importance of semantic comprehension and prediction in higher-level lexical processing. Neurologically, the dual pathway model of speech production is supported, indicating a dorsal information flow and frontal lobe involvement. The brain network linked to semantic understanding exhibits a negative correlation with semantic coherence, with significant activation during semantic incoherence and suppression in regular sentences. Discussion: The study's findings enhance comprehension of speech planning mechanisms and offer insights into the role of semantic coherence in continuous speech production. Furthermore, the research methodology establishes a valuable framework for future investigations in this domain. |
Linjieqiong Huang; Xingshan Li The effects of lexical- and sentence-level contextual cues on Chinese word segmentation Journal Article In: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, pp. 1–10, 2023. @article{Huang2023e, The present study showed that Chinese readers use the lexical-level contextual cue when segmenting words, and words supported by the lexical-level contextual cue are more likely to be segmented as words than words not supported by the lexical-level contextual cue. Moreover, when both the lexical- level contextual cue and the sentence-level contextual cue are available, the lexical-level contextual cue is used earlier than or simultaneously with the sentence-level contextual cue. |
Falk Huettig; Cesko C. Voeten; Esther Pascual; Junying Liang; Florian Hintz Do autistic children differ in language-mediated prediction? Journal Article In: Cognition, vol. 239, pp. 1–7, 2023. @article{Huettig2023, Prediction appears to be an important characteristic of the human mind. It has also been suggested that prediction is a core difference of autistic1 children. Past research exploring language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in autistic children, however, has been somewhat contradictory, with some studies finding normal anticipatory processing in autistic children with low levels of autistic traits but others observing weaker prediction effects in autistic children with less receptive language skills. Here we investigated language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in young children who differed in the severity of their level of autistic traits and were in professional institutional care in Hangzhou, China. We chose the same spoken sentences (translated into Mandarin Chinese) and visual stimuli as a previous study which observed robust prediction effects in young children (Mani & Huettig, 2012) and included a control group of typically-developing children. Typically developing but not autistic children showed robust prediction effects. Most interestingly, autistic children with lower communication, motor, and (adaptive) behavior scores exhibited both less predictive and non-predictive visual attention behavior. Our results raise the possibility that differences in language-mediated anticipatory eye movements in autistic children with higher levels of autistic traits may be differences in visual attention in disguise, a hypothesis that needs further investigation. |
Ariel N. James; Colleen J. Minnihan; Duane G. Watson Language experience predicts eye movements during online auditory comprehension Journal Article In: Journal of Cognition, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 1–29, 2023. @article{James2023, Experience-based theories of language processing suggest that listeners use the properties of their previous linguistic input to constrain comprehension in real time (e.g. MacDonald & Christiansen, 2002; Smith & Levy, 2013; Stanovich & West, 1989; Mishra, Pandey, Singh, & Huettig, 2012). This project investigates the prediction that individual differences in experience will predict differences in sentence comprehension. Participants completed a visual world eye-tracking task following Altmann and Kamide (1999) which manipulates whether the verb licenses the anticipation of a specific referent in the scene (e.g. The boy will eat/move the cake). Within this paradigm, we ask (1) are there reliable individual differences in language-mediated eye movements during this task? If so, (2) do individual differences in language experience correlate with these differences, and (3) can this relationship be explained by other, more general cognitive abilities? Study 1 finds evidence that language experience predicts an overall facilitation in fixating the target, and Study 2 replicates this effect and finds that it remains when controlling for working memory, inhibitory control, phonological ability, and perceptual speed. |
Juan Jia; Ziyu Wei; Heben Cheng; Xiaolu Wang Translation directionality and translator anxiety: Evidence from eye movements in L1-L2 translation Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–12, 2023. @article{Jia2023, While considerable research on the impact of anxiety on second language learning has been carried out in international contexts, the impact of anxiety on the translator's undertaking L2 translation, a sort of anxiety arising from the translation directionality, as well as the structure of cognitive mechanism for translational anxiety, remain under-explored. Adopting the eye-tracking and key-logging approach to data collection, this study implemented an eye-tracking experiment with EFL learners at a Chinese university to probe into how the participants responded to L1 and L2 translation-tasks and the mechanism involved in these processes. It is found that translation directionality does have a great impact on the processing of translation, which causes the change of cognitive load and then leads to the change of levels in translator anxiety. The finding further confirms the key premises of the Processing Proficiency Model and the Revised Hierarchical Model with attendant implications for translation processes. |
Yanfang Jia; Sanjun Sun Man or machine? Comparing the difficulty of human translation versus neural machine translation post-editing Journal Article In: Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 950–968, 2023. @article{Jia2023a, This study aims to compare neural machine translation (NMT) post-editing and human translation in terms of task difficulty while considering source text (ST) complexity and machine translation (MT) quality levels, two factors that have been rarely examined in previous comparison studies. Data were obtained from 60 trainee translators concerning the perceived and objective difficulties of post-editing and human translation tasks and the participants' performance. It was found that (1) the difficulty of the NMT post-editing task, compared to human translation, was significantly influenced by both NMT quality and ST complexity; the difficulty of the post-editing task was significantly lower than that of the human translation task only in the case of high-quality NMT paired with complex ST, while the results were mixed for other interactions between NMT quality and ST complexity levels; (2) no strong correlations were found between the participants' perceived difficulty and the measurements of objective difficulty and task performance for both post-editing and human translation tasks. Practical and research implications were discussed. |
Yu-Cin Cin Jian Reading behavior in science comics and its relations with comprehension performance and reading attitudes: An eye-tracker study Journal Article In: Research in Science Education, vol. 53, no. 129, pp. 689–706, 2023. @article{Jian2023, One of the ways to acquire scientific knowledge is by reading science comics. This study aims to investigate the attitudes (e.g., reading habits, interest, motivation) of university students toward reading science comics, and how they read science comics for acquiring scientific knowledge reflected by an eye tracker. Sixty-five undergraduates were invited to complete an attitudes and habits questionnaire of reading comics, after which they read a science comic where their reading processes were recorded by an eye tracker; finally, they completed a reading comprehension test. The results showed that most undergraduates had a positive attitude for reading comics, and were more likely to learn science by reading comics rather than texts. In addition, the analysis results of the linear mixed-effect models indicated that fixation with regard to re-reading durations could promote post-reading comprehension. The readers who particularly re-read the important information in relation to the boxed-in texts and graphics for a longer period scored higher in the post-test (e.g., the cause and variation processes of cancer). The analysis of variance also indicated that readers who exhibited a good test performance allocated more re-reading time on informational texts and diagrams. This meant they were more intentional and selective in re-reading the core and concept-intensive information; however, concerning the reader who performed poorly in their test, this reading pattern was unapparent. Therefore, those who exhibited a better grasp of the knowledge in the science comics were likely to fully process the areas that presented relevant information concerning important science concepts. |
Shang Jiang; Anna Siyanova-Chanturia The processing of multiword expressions in L1 and L2 Chinese: Evidence from reaction times and eye movements Journal Article In: Modern Language Journal, vol. 107, no. 2, pp. 565–605, 2023. @article{Jiang2023a, Frequency and proficiency have been found to play an important role in second language (L2) phrasal processing. However, existing research has largely focused on English and other European languages, with other commonly used languages, such as Chinese, being largely disregarded. To fill this gap, we carried out two experiments to investigate how frequency—operationalized as a dichotomy (collocation vs. control) and a continuum (log-transformed corpus frequency)—and language proficiency affect phrasal processing in first language (L1) and L2 speakers of Chinese. The results of a grammaticality judgment task (Experiment 1) and an eye-tracking experiment (Experiment 2) largely converged to show that not only L1 speakers but also L2 learners are sensitive to phrase frequency manipulations, with collocations and higher frequency phrases being processed faster than controls and lower frequency phrases, respectively. Additionally, the analysis of eye movements—but not reaction times—showed a relationship between proficiency and phrase frequency. Finally, the use of the eye-tracking methodology allowed us to tap into the mechanisms associated with earlier and later stages of phrasal processing, and to analyze multiple interest areas. |
Svetlana Kovalenko; Anton Mamonov; Vladislav Kuznetsov; Alexandr Bulygin; Irina Shoshina; Ivan Brak; Alexey Kashevnik OperatorEYEVP: Operator dataset for fatigue detection based on eye movements, heart rate data, and video information Journal Article In: Sensors, vol. 23, no. 13, pp. 1–35, 2023. @article{Kovalenko2023, Detection of fatigue is extremely important in the development of different kinds of preventive systems (such as driver monitoring or operator monitoring for accident prevention). The presence of fatigue for this task should be determined with physiological and objective behavioral indicators. To develop an effective model of fatigue detection, it is important to record a dataset with people in a state of fatigue as well as in a normal state. We carried out data collection using an eye tracker, a video camera, a stage camera, and a heart rate monitor to record a different kind of signal to analyze them. In our proposed dataset, 10 participants took part in the experiment and recorded data 3 times a day for 8 days. They performed different types of activity (choice reaction time, reading, correction test Landolt rings, playing Tetris), imitating everyday tasks. Our dataset is useful for studying fatigue and finding indicators of its manifestation. We have analyzed datasets that have public access to find the best for this task. Each of them contains data of eye movements and other types of data. We evaluated each of them to determine their suitability for fatigue studies, but none of them fully fit the fatigue detection task. We evaluated the recorded dataset by calculating the correspondences between eye-tracking data and CRT (choice reaction time) that show the presence of fatigue. |
Emmanouil Ktistakis; Panagiotis Simos; Miltiadis K. Tsilimbaris; Sotiris Plainis Efficacy οf wet age-related macular degeneration treatment οn reading: A pilot study using eye-movement analysis Journal Article In: Optometry and Vision Science, vol. 100, no. 10, pp. 670–678, 2023. @article{Ktistakis2023, SIGNIFICANCE Functional vision, as evaluated with silent passage reading speed, improves after anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment in patients with wet age-related macular antidegeneration (wAMD), reflecting primarily a concomitant reduction in the number of fixations. Implementing eye movement analysis when reading may better characterize the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches in wAMD. PURPOSE This study aimed to evaluate silent reading performance by means of eye fixation analysis before and after anti-VEGF treatment in wAMD patients. METHODS Sixteen wAMD patients who underwent anti-VEGF treatment in one eye and visual acuity (VA) better than 0.5 logMAR served as the AMD group. Twenty adults without ocular pathology served as the control group. Central retinal thickness and near VA were assessed at baseline and 3 to 4 months after their first visit. Reading performance was evaluated using short passages of 0.4-logMAR print size. Eye movements were recorded using EyeLink II video eye tracker. Data analysis included computation of reading speed, fixation duration, number of fixations, and percentage of regressions. Frequency distributions of fixation durations were analyzed with ex-Gaussian fittings. RESULTS In the AMD group, silent reading speed in the treated eye correlated well with central retinal thickness reduction and improved significantly by an average of 15.9 ± 28.5 words per minute (P =.04). This improvement was accompanied by an average reduction of 0.24 ± 0.38 in fixations per word (P =.03). The corresponding improvement in monocular VA was not statistically significant. Other eye fixation parameters did not change significantly after treatment. No statistically significant differences were found in the control group. CONCLUSIONS Visual acuity tests may underestimate the potential therapeutic effects after anti-VEGF treatment in patients with relatively good acuity who are being treated for wAMD. Evaluating silent reading performance and eye fixation parameters may better characterize the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches in wAMD patients. |
Justin B. Kueser; Ryan Peters; Arielle Borovsky The role of semantic similarity in verb learning events: Vocabulary-related changes across early development Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 226, pp. 1–19, 2023. @article{Kueser2023, Verb meaning is challenging for children to learn across varied events. This study examined how the taxonomic semantic similarity of the nouns in novel verb learning events in a progressive alignment learning condition differed from the taxonomic dissimilarity of nouns in a dissimilar learning condition in supporting near (similar) and far (dissimilar) verb generalization to novel objects in an eye-tracking task. A total of 48 children in two age groups (23 girls; younger: 21–24 months |
Jan Kujala; Sasu Mäkelä; Pauliina Ojala; Jukka Hyönä; Riitta Salmelin Beta- and gamma-band cortico-cortical interactions support naturalistic reading of continuous text Journal Article In: European Journal of Neuroscience, pp. 1–14, 2023. @article{Kujala2023, Large-scale integration of information across cortical structures, building on neural connectivity, has been proposed to be a key element in supporting human cognitive processing. In electrophysiological neuroimaging studies of reading, quantification of neural interactions has been limited to the level of isolated words or sentences due to artefacts induced by eye movements. Here, we combined magnetoencephalography recording with advanced artefact rejection tools to investigate both cortico-cortical coherence and directed neural interactions during naturalistic reading of full-page texts. Our results show that reading versus visual scanning of text was associated with wide-spread increases of cortico-cortical coherence in the beta and gamma bands. We further show that the reading task was linked to increased directed neural interactions compared to the scanning task across a sparse set of connections within a wide range of frequencies. Together, the results demonstrate that neural connectivity flexibly builds on different frequency bands to support continuous natural reading. |
Victor Kuperman; Noam Siegelman; Sascha Schroeder; Cengiz Acartürk; Svetlana Alexeeva; Simona Amenta; Raymond Bertram; Rolando Bonandrini; Marc Brysbaert; Daria Chernova; Sara Maria Da Fonseca; Nicolas Dirix; Wouter Duyck; Argyro Fella; Ram Frost; Carolina A. Gattei; Areti Kalaitzi; Kaidi Lõo; Marco Marelli; Kelly Nisbet; Timothy C. Papadopoulos; Athanassios Protopapas; Satu Savo; Diego E. Shalom; Natalia Slioussar; Roni Stein; Longjiao Sui; Analí Taboh; Veronica Tønnesen; Kerem Alp Usal; Veronica Tonnesen; Kerem Alp Usal Text reading in English as a second language: Evidence from the Multilingual Eye-Movements Corpus Journal Article In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 3–37, 2023. @article{Kuperman2023, Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a relatively short supply of comparable, ecologically valid data from readers representing a variety of first languages (L1). This article addresses this need by presenting a new data resource called MECO L2 (Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus), a rich behavioral eye-tracking record of text reading in English as an L2 among 543 university student speakers of 12 different L1s. MECO L2 includes a test battery of component skills of reading and allows for a comparison of the participants' reading performance in their L1 and L2. This data resource enables innovative large-scale cross-sample analyses of predictors of L2 reading fluency and comprehension. We first introduce the design and structure of the MECO L2 resource, along with reliability estimates and basic descriptive analyses. Then, we illustrate the utility of MECO L2 by quantifying contributions of four sources to variability in L2 reading proficiency proposed in prior literature: reading fluency and comprehension in L1, proficiency in L2 component skills of reading, extralinguistic factors, and the L1 of the readers. Major findings included (a) a fundamental contrast between the determinants of L2 reading fluency versus comprehension accuracy, and (b) high within-participant consistency in the real-time strategy of reading in L1 and L2. We conclude by reviewing the implications of these findings to theories of L2 acquisition and outline further directions in which the new data resource may support L2 reading research. |
Didem Kurt; Nazik Dinçtopal Deniz Processing focus in Turkish Journal Article In: Languages, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–22, 2023. @article{Kurt2023, The immediately preverbal position has been argued to be the default focus position in Turkish. In absence of any overt focus markers, the constituent in this position is considered to carry sentential stress and neutral information for canonical word-order sentences and focus is projected to the whole sentence in the form of broad focus. In non-canonical word-order sentences, the immediately preverbal constituent is presumed to carry focal stress and the focused constituent would receive narrow focus. This paper tested this claim experimentally. The paper also investigated if there were any differences in the cognitive operations associated with processing and revising focus in canonical and non-canonical sentences. There were a sentence completion task and an eye-tracking experiment. The sentence completion data and the eye-tracking data supported the theoretical predictions: the immediately preverbal position was associated with default focus in Turkish when no pitch accentuation or other focus markers were available. The eye-tracking data further showed that changes to word-order were perceived as cues for broad versus narrow focus marking. The participants' processing of and revision from narrow focus were costlier than processing broad focus and assigning narrow focus for the first time. We argue, in line with previous research, that this may be due to deeper encoding of focused information in memory or heavier memory load resulting from keeping a set of alternatives of the focused constituent when it has contrastive meaning. |
Marianna Kyriacou; Kathy Conklin; Dominic Thompson Ambiguity resolution in passivized idioms: Is there a shift in the most likely interpretation? Journal Article In: Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 77, no. 3, pp. 212–226, 2023. @article{Kyriacou2023, Ambiguous but canonical idioms (kick the bucket) are processed fast in both their figurative (“die”) and literal (“boot the pail”) senses, although processing costs associated with meaning integration may emerge in postidiom regions. Modified versions (the bucket was kicked) are processed more slowly than canonical configurations when intended figuratively. We hypothesized that modifications delay idiom recognition and prioritize the literal meaning, yielding processing costs when the context warrants a figurative interpretation. To test this, we designed an eye-tracking study, where passivized idioms were followed by “WABBLE” relating to their literal (bucket—water) or figurative (dead—body) meaning, or were incongruent (time). The remaining context was identical. The findings showed a facilitation for the literal meaning: WABBLE and passivized idioms in the literal condition were read significantly faster in go-past and total reading time, respectively, compared to both the figurative and control conditions. However, both literal and figurative WABBLE were processed equally fast (and significantly faster than controls) in total reading time. In support of our hypothesis, the literal meaning of passivized idioms appears to be more highly activated and easier to integrate, although the figurative meaning receives some activation that facilitates its (full) retrieval if necessary. |
Sol Lago; Kate Stone; Elise Oltrogge; João Veríssimo Possessive processing in bilingual comprehension Journal Article In: Language Learning, vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 904–941, 2023. @article{Lago2023, Second language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so-called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German speakers (Stone, Veríssimo, et al., 2021). By comparing Spanish and English learners of L2 German whose languages have different possessive constraints, we were able to examine whether the match effect was modulated by the participants' L1. A first experiment suggested that predictions and match effects were absent in setups with complex visual displays. A second experiment with simpler displays successfully elicited predictions and match effects, but their size was comparable in Spanish and English speakers, inconsistent with crosslinguistic influence. We interpret our results as evidence that processing difficulties with possessives result from memory interference that impacts both L1 and L2 comprehenders. |
Hend Lahoud; Zohar Eviatar; Hamutal Kreiner Eye-movement patterns in skilled Arabic readers: Effects of specific features of Arabic versus universal factors Journal Article In: Reading and Writing, pp. 1–30, 2023. @article{Lahoud2023, This study aims to shed light on the contribution of universal versus language specific factors on reading. We examined eye movements of Arabic readers and analyzed effects specific to Arabic such as perceptual complexity, diglossia and morphology, in addition to universal factors such as word length and frequency. Twenty native Arabic speakers read continuous texts in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) while their eye movements were monitored. A corpus-based analyses was carried to test effects specific to Arabic and effects of the benchmark eye movement factors. We found that perceptually more complex words received longer fixation durations, moreover, differences in processing words unique in MSA versus words shared between MSA and spoken Arabic Vernacular were found. This is the first indication for these effects during an eye movement reading task. However, the effect of morphological length was not significant when included in the model with all predictors. Lastly, the benchmark factors were significant showing effects for word length, word frequency and part of speech. Short and frequent words are processed faster than longer and less frequent words. Function words are often skipped. We conclude that eye movement of Arabic readers reflect proficient reading, yet they also exhibit an on-going challenge in processing the written language. |
Hend Lahoud; David L. Share; Adi Shechter A developmental study of eye movements in Hebrew word reading: The effects of word familiarity, word length, and reading proficiency Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–11, 2023. @article{Lahoud2023a, Previous studies examining the link between visual word recognition and eye movements have shown that eye movements reflect the time-course of cognitive processes involved in reading. Whereas most studies have been undertaken in Western European languages written in the Roman alphabet, the present developmental study investigates a non-European language—Hebrew, which is written in a non-alphabetic (abjadic) script. We compared the eye-movements of children in Grades 4 to 6 (N = 30) and university students (N = 30) reading familiar real words and unfamiliar (pseudo)words of 3 letters and 5 letters in length. Using linear mixed models, we focused on the effects of word familiarity, word length, and age group. Our results highlight both universal aspects of word reading (developmental and familiarity (lexicality) effects) as well as language-specific word length effect which appears to be related to the unique morphological and orthographic features of the Semitic abjad. |
Cheng-Ji Lai; Li-You Chang In: Social Sciences and Humanities Open, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–8, 2023. @article{Lai2023, This study investigated how undergraduate students with different levels of translation proficiency employed translation principles and techniques in English-Chinese sight translation tasks, and how this affected their cognitive processing and performance. Participants were grouped into high-, intermediate-, and low-levels based on placement tests, and completed pre- and post-tests after a translation course. Their use of three translation principles (fidelity, fluency, and elegance) and techniques (segmentation, conversion, and addition) was measured using EyeLink eye tracking, and participants were interviewed to evaluate their metacognitive reflections on their translations. The results show that the high- and intermediate-level groups completed the sight translation post-test faster than the pre-test. The use of segmentation, restructuring, and conversion techniques was found to benefit students the most in sight translation tasks, and the intermediate-level group outperformed the other groups by making a greater cognitive effort in restructuring and refining their translations to achieve a higher level of competence in the elegance principle. The study provides pedagogical implications and scholarly significance for the application of translation principles and techniques in sight translation between Chinese and English. |
Yao-Ying Lai; David Braze; Maria Mercedes Piñango The time-course of contextual modulation for underspecified meaning Journal Article In: The Mental Lexicon, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 41–93, 2023. @article{Lai2023a, Sentences like (1) “ The singer began the album” are ambiguous between an agentive reading (The singer began recording/playing/etc. the album) and a constitutive reading (The singer's song was the first track). The ambiguity is rooted in the meaning specification of the aspectual-verb class, which demands its complement be construed as a structured individual along a dimension (e.g., spatial, informational, eventive). In (1), the complement can be construed as a set of eventualities (eventive) or musical content (informational). Processing aspectual-verb sentences is shown to involve (a) exhaustive lexical-function retrieval and (b) construal of multiple dimension-specific structured individuals, leading to multiple compositions with agentive and constitutive readings. The ultimate interpretation depends on the biased dimensions in context. Our eye-tracking study comparing sentences in different contexts (agentive vs. constitutive-biasing) shows not only the aspectual-verb composition effect, previously reported for the agentive readings, but also a comparable processing profile for the constitutive readings, a novel finding supporting the unified linguistic analysis and processing implementation of the two readings. Regardless of reading, the composition effect is observable even after the complement has been retrieved, indicating that the fundamental lexico-semantic compositional processes must take place before context can serve as a constraining force. |
Crystal Lee; Andrew Jessop; Amy Bidgood; Michelle S. Peter; Julian M. Pine; Caroline F. Rowland; Samantha Durrant How executive functioning, sentence processing, and vocabulary are related at 3 years of age Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 233, pp. 1–21, 2023. @article{Lee2023, There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that executive function (EF) abilities are positively associated with language development during the preschool years, such that children with good executive functions also have larger vocabularies. However, why this is the case remains to be discovered. In this study, we focused on the hypothesis that sentence processing abilities mediate the association between EF skills and receptive vocabulary knowledge, in that the speed of language acquisition is at least partially dependent on a child's processing ability, which is itself dependent on executive control. We tested this hypothesis in longitudinal data from a cohort of 3- and 4-year-old children at three age points (37, 43, and 49 months). We found evidence, consistent with previous research, for a significant association between three EF skills (cognitive flexibility, working memory [as measured by the Backward Digit Span], and inhibition) and receptive vocabulary knowledge across this age range. However, only one of the tested sentence processing abilities (the ability to maintain multiple possible referents in mind) significantly mediated this relationship and only for one of the tested EFs (inhibition). The results suggest that children who are better able to inhibit incorrect responses are also better able to maintain multiple possible referents in mind while a sentence unfolds, a sophisticated sentence processing ability that may facilitate vocabulary learning from complex input. |
Sungyoon Lee The role of spatial ability and attention shifting in reading of illustrated scientific texts: An eye tracking study Journal Article In: Reading Psychology, vol. 44, no. 8, pp. 915–935, 2023. @article{Lee2023b, The purpose of the study is to examine the role of spatial ability and attention shifting in reading of illustrated science texts. Thirty-five fourth/fifth elementary students read two science texts. Prior knowledge and retention/transfer learning outcomes were measured using researcher-developed measures. While reading, students' eye movements were monitored with an eye-tracker. Several eye movement indices were used to reflect reading processes. Fixation count on text/picture was used to represent students' attentional focus on text or picture. Text to text saccades and picture to picture saccades were used to reflect students' information organization. Students' integrative reading behavior was measured by eye movement transitions between text and picture. Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Visual Perception Skill Test were used to assess attention shifting and visuospatial working memory, respectively. Multiple regressions were conducted to examine whether students' spatial ability and attention shifting predict text processing, picture processing, or integrative processing of text and picture. Hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine whether students' integrative reading make unique and direct contributions to their learning outcomes. The study found that 1) both spatial ability and attention shifting are significant predictors for integrative reading behavior while they are not for other processing behaviors (i.e., text processing and picture processing) and 2) integrative reading behaviors in illustrated text reading account for significant amounts of variance in the transfer outcomes while not in the retention outcomes. This study gives practical implications on the development of visual literacy interventions and on how teachers design their instruction about science text reading. |
Yen-Lin Lee; Hsuan-Chih Chen; Yu-Chen Chan The attentional bias of gelotophobes towards emotion words containing the Chinese character for ‘laugh': An eye-tracking approach Journal Article In: Current Psychology, vol. 42, no. 19, pp. 16330–16343, 2023. @article{Lee2023c, Gelotophobes are typically characterized by the fear of laughter, social withdrawal, and humorlessness, possibly related to negative experiences of being laughed at in the past. The present study seeks to expand our understanding of gelotophobia through a relatively novel approach: using eye-tracking to investigate the attentional bias of gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes towards negative emotion words that do and do not contain the Chinese character for “laugh,” by comparing responses to negative ridicule words (RID), negative contempt words (CONT), positive pleasure words (PLE) and neutral words (NEU). Results of the start time of the first run of fixations showed that gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes both focused on negative words before other words. Gelotophobes' attentional bias towards RID and CONT was greater than that of non-gelotophobes in first gaze duration, percentage of total viewing duration, total fixation count, and run count, suggesting that gelotophobes had greater difficulty in disengaging their attention from negative to neutral words. Non-gelotophobes' attentional bias, however, towards negative ridicule neutral words (RID-NEU) and negative contempt neutral words (CONT-NEU) was greater than that of gelotophobes, suggesting that non-gelotophobes were more able to shift attention from negative to neutral words. Moreover, gelotophobes paid significantly more attention to RID than CONT, suggesting that gelotophobes displayed a longer and stronger attentional bias towards RID (containing the “laugh” character). Interestingly, there was no difference for PLE between gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes. The present study contributes to our understanding of the attentional bias of gelotophobes and non-gelotophobes towards emotion words. |
Rony Lemel; Lilach Shalev; Gal Nitsan; Boaz M. Ben-David Listen up! ADHD slows spoken-word processing in adverse listening conditions: Evidence from eye movements Journal Article In: Research in Developmental Disabilities, vol. 133, pp. 1–15, 2023. @article{Lemel2023, Background: Cognitive skills such as sustained attention, inhibition and working memory are essential for speech processing, yet are often impaired in people with ADHD. Offline measures have indicated difficulties in speech recognition on multi-talker babble (MTB) background for young adults with ADHD (yaADHD). However, to-date no study has directly tested online speech processing in adverse conditions for yaADHD. Aims: Gauging the effects of ADHD on segregating the spoken target-word from its sound-sharing competitor, in MTB and working-memory (WM) load. Methods and procedures: Twenty-four yaADHD and 22 matched controls that differ in sustained attention (SA) but not in WM were asked to follow spoken instructions presented on MTB to touch a named object, while retaining one (low-load) or four (high-load) digit/s for later recall. Their eye fixations were tracked. Outcomes and results: In the high-load condition, speech processing was less accurate and slowed by 140ms for yaADHD. In the low-load condition, the processing advantage shifted from early perceptual to later cognitive stages. Fixation transitions (hesitations) were inflated for yaADHD. Conclusions and implications: ADHD slows speech processing in adverse listening conditions and increases hesitation, as speech unfolds in time. These effects, detected only by online eyetracking, relate to attentional difficulties. We suggest online speech processing as a novel purview on ADHD. What this paper adds?: We suggest speech processing in adverse listening conditions as a novel vantage point on ADHD. Successful speech recognition in noise is essential for performance across daily settings: academic, employment and social interactions. It involves several executive functions, such as inhibition and sustained attention. Impaired performance in these functions is characteristic of ADHD. However, to date there is only scant research on speech processing in ADHD. The current study is the first to investigate online speech processing as the word unfolds in time using eyetracking for young adults with ADHD (yaADHD). This method uncovered slower speech processing in multi-talker babble noise for yaADHD compared to matched controls. The performance of yaADHD indicated increased hesitation between the spoken word and sound-sharing alternatives (e.g., CANdle-CANdy). These delays and hesitations, on the single word level, could accumulate in continuous speech to significantly impair communication in ADHD, with severe implications on their quality of life and academic success. Interestingly, whereas yaADHD and controls were matched on WM standardized tests, WM load appears to affect speech processing for yaADHD more than for controls. This suggests that ADHD may lead to inefficient deployment of WM resources that may not be detected when WM is tested alone. Note that these intricate differences could not be detected using traditional offline accuracy measures, further supporting the use of eyetracking in speech tasks. Finally, communication is vital for active living and wellbeing. We suggest paying attention to speech processing in ADHD in treatment and when considering accessibility and inclusion. |
Hui Li; Xiaolu Wang; Kevin B. Paterson; Hua Zhang; Degao Li Is there a processing advantage for verb-noun collocations in Chinese reading? Evidence from eye movements during reading Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–12, 2023. @article{Li2023e, A growing number of studies show a processing advantage for collocations, which are commonly-used juxtapositions of words, such as “joint effort” or “shake hands,” suggesting that skilled readers are keenly perceptive to the occurrence of two words in phrases. With the current research, we report two experiments that used eye movement measures during sentence reading to explore the processing of four-character verb-noun collocations in Chinese, such as 修改文章 (“revise the article”). Experiment 1 compared the processing of these collocations relative to similar four-character expressions that are not collocations (e.g., 修改结尾, “revise the ending”) in neutral contexts and contexts in which the collocation was predictable from the preceding sentence context. Experiment 2 further examined the processing of these four-character collocations, by comparing eye movements for commonly-used “strong” collocations, such as 保护环境 (“protect the environment”), as compared to less commonly-used “weak” collocations, such as 保护自然 (“protect nature”), again in neutral contexts and contexts in which the collocations were highly predictable. The results reveal a processing advantage for both collocations relative to novel expressions, and for “strong” collocations relative to “weak” collocations, which was independent of effects of contextual predictability. We interpret these findings as providing further evidence that readers are highly sensitive to the frequency that words co-occur as a phrase in written language, and that a processing advantage for collocations occurs independently of contextual expectations. |
Nan Li; Dongxia Sun; Suiping Wang Semantic preview effect of relatedness and plausibility in reading Chinese: Evidence from high constraint sentences Journal Article In: Reading and Writing, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 1319–1338, 2023. @article{Li2023o, In natural reading, the processing of words in fixation is influenced by semantic information obtained through preview (i.e., the semantic preview effect). Previous studies have confirmed that two types of semantic information exhibit the semantic preview effect: semantic association, which is reflected by the semantic relationship between preview words and target words, and semantic integration, which is reflected by the plausibility of preview words in sentences. This study examined whether and how these two types of semantic preview information interact to influence readers' processing of words in the fovea. We referenced high constraint sentences, in which contextual information strongly limits the possible meanings, and the meaning of the target word can be activated before the target word becomes fixated. Thus, the meaning of the target word can be obtained at least as early as when the pretarget word becomes fixated. Therefore, by creating a high constraint context, the reader can obtain the meaning of the upcoming word both through preview and through preactivation within the same preview time window. We tested the preview effect of semantic relatedness when preview words were implausible (Experiment 1) and plausible (Experiment 2). Readers' eye movements were measured. The results showed that the preview effect (shortened fixation duration) of semantic relatedness appeared only when the preview word was plausible. This finding suggests that readers can use semantic information from different sources within the same preview time window and that message-level representations play an immediate and pivotal role in this process. |
Qian Li A preliminary study on the online processing of anticipatory tonal coarticulation – Evidence from eye movements Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–8, 2023. @article{Li2023g, While the f0 realization of lexical tones vary extensively in contexts, little has been known on how listeners process the variation in lexical tones due to contextual effects such as tonal coarticulation in spoken word recognition. This study thus aims to fill the knowledge gap in tone perception with evidence from two types of anticipatory tonal coarticulation effects in Tianjin Mandarin, i.e., the slope raising effect due to a following low-falling tone and the overall-height raising effect due to a following low-dipping tone. An eye-tracking experiment with the Visual World Paradigm was carried out to compare participants' eye movements when they heard targets in three types of anticipatory raising conditions, i.e., the Slope Raising condition, the Overall-height Raising condition, as well as the No Raising condition (the baseline). The eye movement results showed significant differences in the proportion of looks to target between the Slope Raising condition versus the other two conditions, whereas the Overall-height Raising condition did not differ significantly from the No Raising condition. The findings thus suggest the facilitatory effect of tonal coarticulation cues in the anticipation of the upcoming tones, but listeners in this study seemed to be only sensitive to the raising in the f0 slope rather than the overall raising in the f0 height. |
Shuang Li; Xiuhong Tong; Wei Shena Influence of lexical tone similarity on spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from eye tracking Journal Article In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, vol. 66, no. 9, pp. 3453–3472, 2023. @article{Li2023h, Purpose: Using the visual world paradigm with the eye-tracking technique, this study examined the extent to which lexical tone similarity influences spoken word recognition. Method: In two experiments, participants were audibly presented with a target word and visually presented with the same target word, a tonal competitor, and two distractors, and they were required to identify the target word. In Experiment 1, the two tonal competitors shared either acoustically highly similar tones (e.g., target word: /yang2tai2/, “balcony” vs. competitor: /yang3zi3/, “adopted son”) or acoustically lowly similar tones (e.g., target word: /yang2tai2/, “balcony” vs. competitor:/yang4ben3/, “sample”). In Experiment 2, the acoustic similarity of the target words and the tonal competitors shared either acoustically highly similar tones or acoustically lowly similar tones or identical tones (e.g., target word: /yang2tai2/, “balcony” vs. competitor: /yang2mao2/, “wool”). Results: The results of the two experiments consistently demonstrated a graded tonal competitor effect, in which acoustically highly similar tonal competitors attracted more visual attention than acoustically lowly similar tonal competitors. Conclusion: Tonal similarity plays a graded constraining role in spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese. |
Xinjing Li; Qingqing Qu Verbal working memory capacity modulates semantic and phonological prediction in spoken comprehension Journal Article In: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, pp. 1–10, 2023. @article{Li2023j, Mounting evidence suggests that people may use multiple cues to predict different levels of representation (e.g., semantic, syntactic, and phonological) during language comprehension. One question that has been less investigated is the relationship between general cognitive processing and the efficiency of prediction at various linguistic levels, such as semantic and phonological levels. To address this research gap, the present study investigated how working memory capacity (WMC) modulates different kinds of prediction behavior (i.e., semantic prediction and phonological prediction) in the visual world. Chinese speakers listened to the highly predictable sentences that contained a highly predictable target word, and viewed a visual display of objects. The visual display of objects contained a target object corresponding to the predictable word, a semantic or a phonological competitor that was semantically or phonologically related to the predictable word, and an unrelated object. We conducted a Chinese version of the reading span task to measure verbal WMC and grouped participants into high- and low-span groups. Participants showed semantic and phonological prediction with comparable size in both groups during language comprehension, with earlier semantic prediction in the high-span group, and a similar time course of phonological prediction in both groups. These results suggest that verbal working memory modulates predictive processing in language comprehension. |
Yutong Li; Hanwen Shi; Shan Li; Lei Gao; Xiaolei Gao The adjustment of complexity on sarcasm processing in Chinese: Evidence from reading time indicators Journal Article In: Brain Sciences, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 1–13, 2023. @article{Li2023m, It is controversial whether sarcasm processing should go through literal meaning processing. There is also a lack of eye movement evidence for Chinese sarcasm processing. In this study, we used eye movement experiments to explore the processing differences between sarcastic and literal meaning in Chinese text and whether this was regulated by sentence complexity. We manipulated the variables of complexity and literality. We recorded 33 participants' eye movements when they were reading Chinese text and the results were analyzed by a linear mixed model. We found that, in the early stage of processing, there was no difference between the processing time of the sarcastic meaning and the literal meaning of simple remarks, whereas for complex remarks, the time needed to process the sarcastic meaning was longer than that needed to process the literal meaning. In the later stage of processing, regardless of complexity, the processing time of the sarcastic meaning was longer than that of the literal meaning. These results suggest that sarcastic speech processing in Chinese is influenced by literal meaning, and the effect of literal meaning on sarcastic remarks is regulated by complexity. Sarcastic meaning was expressed differently in different stages of processing. These results support the hierarchical salience hypothesis of the serial modular model. |
Feifei Liang; Qi Gao; Xin Li; Yongsheng Wang; Xuejun Bai; Simon P. Liversedge In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 98–115, 2023. @article{Liang2023b, Word spacing is important in guiding eye movements during spaced alphabetic reading. Chinese is unspaced and it remains unclear as to how Chinese readers segment and identify words in reading. We conducted two parallel experiments to investigate whether the positional probabilities of the initial and the final characters of a multicharacter word affected word segmentation and identification in Chinese reading. Two-character words were selected as targets. In Experiment 1, the initial character's positional probability was manipulated as being either high or low, and the final character was kept identical across the two conditions. In Experiment 2, an analogous manipulation was made for the final character of the target word. We recorded adults' and children's eye movements when they read sentences containing these words. In Experiment 1, reading times on targets did not differ in the two conditions for both children and adults, providing no evidence that a word initial character's positional probability contributes to word segmentation. In Experiment 2, adults had shorter reading times and made fewer refixations on targets that comprised final characters with high relative to low positional probabilities; a similar effect was observed in children, but this effect had a slower time course. The results demonstrate that the positional probability of the final (but not the initial) character of a word influences segmentation commitments in reading. It suggests that Chinese readers identify where a currently fixated word ends, and via this commitment, by default, they identify where the subsequent word begins |
Agnieszka Lijewska The influence of semantic bias on triple non-identical cognates during reading: Evidence from trilinguals' eye movements Journal Article In: Second Language Research, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 1235 –1263, 2023. @article{Lijewska2023, The current study investigated how the processing of triple cognates (words sharing form and meaning across three languages) is modulated by the semantic bias of sentence context in a reading task. In the study, Polish–German–English trilinguals read English sentences while their eye movements were monitored. The sentences were either semantically biased (high-context) or neutral (low-context) towards target words. The targets were either Polish–German–English cognates whose cross-language form overlap was incomplete (e.g. DIAMENT–DIAMANT–DIAMOND) or English-only controls (e.g. KURCZAK–HÄHNCHEN–CHICKEN). The results revealed a significant effect of context in gaze durations and in total reading time. Importantly, no cognate facilitation effect was identified in any reading measure. The gaze duration data additionally revealed that English-only controls were read slower in low-context sentences than in high-context sentences but gaze durations for cognates were not affected by the sentence context. Thus, prior bilingual findings were only partially replicated in the current study with trilinguals. This suggests that bilingual models of language processing should be carefully adapted to trilinguals. The current data may also mean that non-identical cognates (even those shared across three languages) induce relatively small effects and large samples of participants and items may be needed to detect such effects across reading measures. |
Eva Puimège; Maribel Montero Perez; Elke Peters Promoting L2 acquisition of multiword units through textually enhanced audiovisual input: An eye-tracking study Journal Article In: Second Language Research, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 471–492, 2023. @article{Puimege2023a, This study examines the effect of textual enhancement on learners' attention to and learning of multiword units from captioned audiovisual input. We adopted a within-participants design in which 28 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) watched a captioned video containing enhanced (underlined) and unenhanced multiword units. Using eye-tracking, we measured learners' online processing of the multiword units as they appeared in the captions. Form recall pre- and posttests measured learners' acquisition of the target items. The results of mixed effects models indicate that enhanced items received greater visual attention, with longer reading times, less single word skipping and more rereading. Further, a positive relationship was found between amount of visual attention and learning odds: items fixated longer, particularly during the first pass, were more likely to be recalled in an immediate posttest. Our findings provide empirical support for the positive effect of visual attention on form recall of multiword units encountered in captioned television. The results also suggest that item difficulty and amount of attention were more important than textual enhancement in predicting learning gains. |
Ying Que; Yueyuan Zheng; Janet H. Hsiao; Xiao Hu Studying the effect of self-selected background music on reading task with eye movements Journal Article In: Scientific Reports, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 1–18, 2023. @article{Que2023, Using background music (BGM) during learning is a common behavior, yet whether BGM can facilitate or hinder learning remains inconclusive and the underlying mechanism is largely an open question. This study aims to elucidate the effect of self-selected BGM on reading task for learners with different characteristics. Particularly, learners' reading task performance, metacognition, and eye movements were examined, in relation to their personal traits including language proficiency, working memory capacity, music experience and personality. Data were collected from a between-subject experiment with 100 non-native English speakers who were randomly assigned into two groups. Those in the experimental group read English passages with music of their own choice played in the background, while those in the control group performed the same task in silence. Results showed no salient differences on passage comprehension accuracy or metacognition between the two groups. Comparisons on fine-grained eye movement measures reveal that BGM imposed heavier cognitive load on post-lexical processes but not on lexical processes. It was also revealed that students with higher English proficiency level or more frequent BGM usage in daily self-learning/reading experienced less cognitive load when reading with their BGM, whereas students with higher working memory capacity (WMC) invested more mental effort than those with lower WMC in the BGM condition. These findings further scientific understanding of how BGM interacts with cognitive tasks in the foreground, and provide practical guidance for learners and learning environment designers on making the most of BGM for instruction and learning. |
Begoña Arechabaleta Regulez; Silvina Montrul Production, acceptability, and online comprehension of Spanish differential object marking by heritage speakers and L2 learners Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–19, 2023. @article{Regulez2023, We analyzed the production, acceptability and online comprehension of Spanish differential object marking (DOM) by two groups of bilingual speakers living in the U.S.: heritage speakers and L2 learners. DOM is the overt marking of direct objects that are higher on the animacy and referentiality scales, such as animate and specific objects in Spanish, marked by the preposition a (Juan ve a María ‘Juan sees DOM María'). Previous studies have reported variability and high omission rates of obligatory DOM in bilingual situations where Spanish is in contact with a non-DOM language.Our study combined different methodologies to tap knowledge of DOM in the two groups. The results showed that heritage speakers and L2 learners (1) exhibited variability with DOM in production (in two oral tasks), comprehension (in an acceptability judgement task), and processing (in an eye-tracking reading task); (2) can integrate DOM into their production, judgments and processing, but they do so inconsistently, and (3) type of task and type of sentence each have an effect on speakers' use of DOM. |
Anja Rettig; Ulrich Schiefele Relations between reading motivation and reading efficiency—evidence from a longitudinal eye-tracking study Journal Article In: Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 685–709, 2023. @article{Rettig2023, Studies on the relation between children's reading motivation and early developmental stages of reading competence are rare and have neglected on-line measures of reading skill (e.g., eye movements indicating word decoding). For this reason, we investigated the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation on the efficiency of reading processes based on eye-movement data. Moreover, we examined reading efficiency as a mediator of the relation between motivation and comprehension. German elementary school students in Grades 1–3 (N = 131) were tested on three measurement occasions. Specifically, we assessed reading motivation, reading amount, and sentence comprehension at Time 1, reading efficiency at Time 2 (2 months after Time 1), and all of the variables again at Time 3 (10 months after Time 2). Reading efficiency was assessed while children read age-appropriate sentences and comprised measures of first-fixation duration, gaze duration, total reading time, forward-saccade length, and refixation probability. Linear and cross-lagged panel models showed significant favorable relations between intrinsic reading motivation (operationalized as involvement and enjoyment of reading), but not extrinsic reading motivation (operationalized as striving to outperform one's peers), and most measures of reading efficiency, while controlling for gender, grade level, and reading amount. The reverse effects of reading-efficiency indicators on intrinsic reading motivation were all significant. Moreover, the test of the mediation model revealed a significant indirect effect of Time 1 intrinsic reading motivation on Time 3 sentence comprehension mediated by Time 2 reading efficiency. We concluded that intrinsic reading motivation, in contrast to extrinsic reading motivation, facilitates reading comprehension through its effect on reading efficiency, independent of variations in reading amount. |
Tracy Reuter; Carolyn Mazzei; Casey Lew-Williams; Lauren Emberson Infants' lexical comprehension and lexical anticipation abilities are closely linked in early language development Journal Article In: Infancy, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 532–549, 2023. @article{Reuter2023, Theories across cognitive domains propose that anticipating upcoming sensory input supports information processing. In line with this view, prior findings indicate that adults and children anticipate upcoming words during real-time language processing, via such processes as prediction and priming. However, it is unclear if anticipatory processes are strictly an outcome of prior language development or are more entwined with language learning and development. We operationalized this theoretical question as whether developmental emergence of comprehension of lexical items occurs before or concurrently with the anticipation of these lexical items. To this end, we tested infants of ages 12, 15, 18, and 24 months (N = 67) on their abilities to comprehend and anticipate familiar nouns. In an eye-tracking task, infants viewed pairs of images and heard sentences with either informative words (e.g., eat) that allowed them to anticipate an upcoming noun (e.g., cookie), or uninformative words (e.g., see). Findings indicated that infants' comprehension and anticipation abilities are closely linked over developmental time and within individuals. Importantly, we do not find evidence for lexical comprehension in the absence of lexical anticipation. Thus, anticipatory processes are present early in infants' second year, suggesting they are a part of language development rather than solely an outcome of it. |
Stephanie Rich; Jesse A. Harris Global expectations mediate local constraint: Evidence from concessive structures Journal Article In: Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 302–327, 2023. @article{Rich2023, Numerous studies have found facilitation for lexical processing in highly constraining contexts. However, less is known about cases in which immediately preceding (local) and broader (global) contextual constraint conflict. In two eye-tracking while reading experiments, local and global context were manipulated independently, creating a critical condition where local context biases towards a word that is incongruent with global context. Global context consisted of a clause introduced by a concessive marker generating broad expectations about upcoming material. Experiment 1 compared high- and low-predictability critical words, whereas Experiment 2 held the critical word constant and manipulated the preceding verb to impose different levels of local constraint. Facilitation from local context was reduced when it was incongruent with global context, supporting models in which information from global and local context is rapidly integrated during early lexical processing over models that would initially prioritise only local or only global context. |
Miriam Rivero-Contreras; Paul E. Engelhardt; Pablo Delgado; David Saldaña Does the timing of visual support affect sentence comprehension? An eye-tracking study Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Education, pp. 1–20, 2023. @article{RiveroContreras2023, Purpose: Recent research suggests that visual elements improve sentence processing for students, even at the university level. However, few studies have systematically examined the timing of visual support in reading. Method: We examined the impact of visual support and its timing on sentence comprehension in a sample of 40 typically developing university students. Across 60 sentences, half with images and half without, participants either viewed images simultaneously with sentences or before sentences. Word frequency was also manipulated. Results: Results showed that visual support facilitated sentence processing and that participants who viewed images before sentences exhibited a lower probability of regressions. Conclusion: In conclusion, incorporating images with text can benefit language comprehension. Moreover, the results suggest implications regarding the timing of visual support. |
Miriam Rivero-Contreras; Paul E. Engelhardt; David Saldaña Do easy-to-read adaptations really facilitate sentence processing for adults with a lower level of education? An experimental eye-tracking study Journal Article In: Learning and Instruction, vol. 84, pp. 1–13, 2023. @article{RiveroContreras2023a, The Easy-to-Read guidelines recommend visual support and lexical simplification to facilitate text processing, but few studies have empirically verified the efficacy of these guidelines. This study examined the influence of these recommendations on sentence processing by examining eye movements at the text- and word-level in adult readers. We tested 30 non-university adults (low education level) and 30 university adults (high education level). The experimental task consisted of 60 sentences. Half were accompanied by an image and half were not, and half contained a low-frequency word and half a high-frequency word. Results showed that visual support and lexical simplification facilitated processing in both groups of adults, and non-university adults were significantly slower than university adults at sentence processing. However, lexical simplification resulted in faster processing in the non-university adults' group. Conclusions focus on the mechanisms in which both adaptations benefit readers, and practical implications for reading comprehension. |
Camilo R. Ronderos; Ernesto Guerra; Pia Knoeferle When sequence matters: The processing of contextually biased German verb–object metaphors Journal Article In: Language and Cognition, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1–28, 2023. @article{Ronderos2023, Several studies have investigated the comprehension of decontextualized English nominal metaphors. However, not much is known about how contextualized, non-nominal, non-English metaphors are processed, and how this might inform existing theories of metaphor comprehension. In the current work, we investigate the effects of context and of sequential order for an under-studied type of construction: German verb–object metaphors. In two visual-world, eye-tracking experiments, we manipulated whether a discourse context biased a spoken target utterance toward a metaphoric or a literal interpretation. We also manipulated the order of verb and object in the target utterances (e.g., Stefan interviewt eine Hyäne , ‘Stefan interviews a hyena', verb→object; and Stefan wird eine Hyäne interviewen , ‘Stefan will a hyena interview', object→verb). Experiment 1 shows that contextual cues interacted with sequential order, mediating the processing of verb–object metaphors: When the context biased toward a metaphoric interpretation, participants readily understood the object metaphorically for the verb→object sequence, whereas they likely first understood it literally for the object→verb sequence. Crucially, no such effect of sequential order was found when context biased toward a literal interpretation. Experiment 2 suggests that differences in processing found in Experiment 1 were brought on by the interaction of discourse context and sequential order and not by sequential order alone. We propose ways in which existing theoretical views could be extended to account for these findings. Overall, our study shows the importance of context during figurative language comprehension and highlights the need to test the predictions of metaphor theories on non-English and non-nominal metaphors. |
Mylène Ross-Plourde; Mylène Lachance-Grzela; Andréanne Charbonneau; Mylène Dumont; Annie Roy-Charland Parental stereotypes and cognitive processes: Evidence for a double standard in parenting roles when reading texts Journal Article In: Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 74–82, 2023. @article{RossPlourde2023, While the characteristics associated with fathers have taken on more maternal traits more recently, a similar shift has not been observed for maternal characteristics. The role of mother remains stereotyped, and those who do not adhere to this often face criticism. This study examines the impact of parental stereotypes on the cognitive processes associated with reading. A sample of 32 individuals read 24 experimental passages introducing a parent (mother or father) in a traditional or non-traditional role, and in a neutral or disambiguating context. Results show a significant interaction between the type of role and gender of the parent on reading times. Simple main effect tests revealed that for traditional roles, fixation durations were longer when the protagonist was a father than when the protagonist was a mother. There was no effect of role type for fathers, yet for mothers, fixation durations were longer when they were depicted in non-traditional roles than when they were depicted in traditional roles. This disruption of information processing of schema incongruent content suggests that mothers' parenting stereotypes remain anchored in society and are more rigid than those of fathers, supporting the idea of a double standard in parenting roles. |
Satu Saalasti; Jussi Alho; Juha M. Lahnakoski; Mareike Bacha-Trams; Enrico Glerean; Iiro P. Jääskeläinen; Uri Hasson; Mikko Sams Lipreading a naturalistic narrative in a female population: Neural characteristics shared with listening and reading Journal Article In: Brain and Behavior, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 1–17, 2023. @article{Saalasti2023, Introduction: Few of us are skilled lipreaders while most struggle with the task. Neural substrates that enable comprehension of connected natural speech via lipreading are not yet well understood. Methods: We used a data-driven approach to identify brain areas underlying the lipreading of an 8-min narrative with participants whose lipreading skills varied extensively (range 6–100% |
Nuria Sagarra; Joseph V. Casillas Practice beats age: Co-activation shapes heritage speakers' lexical access more than age of onset Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–18, 2023. @article{Sagarra2023, Probabilistic associations make language processing efficient and are honed through experience. However, it is unclear what language experience factors explain the non-monolingual processing behaviors typical of L2 learners and heritage speakers (HSs). We investigated whether AoO, language proficiency, and language use affect the recognition of Spanish stress-tense suffix associations involving a stressed syllable that cues a present suffix (SALta “s/he jumps”) and an unstressed syllable that cues a past suffix (SALtó “s/he jumped”). Adult Spanish-English HSs, English-Spanish L2 learners, and Spanish monolinguals saw a paroxytone verb (stressed initial syllable) and an oxytone verb (unstressed initial syllable), listened to a sentence containing one of the verbs, and chose the one they heard. Spanish proficiency measured grammatical and lexical knowledge, and Spanish use assessed percentage of current usage. Both bilingual groups were comparable in Spanish proficiency and use. Eye-tracking data showed that all groups fixated on target verbs above chance before hearing the syllable containing the suffix, except the HSs in the oxytones. Monolinguals fixated on targets more and earlier, although at a slower rate, than HSs and L2 learners; in turn, HSs fixated on targets more and earlier than L2 learners, except in oxytones. Higher proficiency increased target fixations in HSs (oxytones) and L2 learners (paroxytones), but greater use only increased target fixations in HSs (oxytones). Taken together, our data show that HSs' lexical access depends more on number of lexical competitors (co-activation of two L1 lexica) and type (phonotactic) frequency than token (lexical) frequency or AoO. We discuss the contribution of these findings to models in phonology, lexical access, language processing, language prediction, and human cognition. |
Johanna Abendroth; Tobias Richter Reading perspectives moderate text-belief consistency effects in eye movements and comprehension Journal Article In: Discourse Processes, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 119–140, 2023. @article{Abendroth2023, Readers often prioritize processing and comprehension of information perceived as relevant to a particular intention. Using a repeated-measurement study, we investigated how readers' prior beliefs and external reading perspectives influence processing and comprehension of belief-relevant texts on two socioscientific controversies. University students read belief-relevant texts from a belief-consistent perspective in one experimental session and from a belief-inconsistent reading perspective in another. Eye tracking was used to measure immediate and delayed processing and a sentence verification task was used to measure comprehension. Results revealed longer first-pass reading times for belief-inconsistent claims compared to belief-consistent claims, especially in the belief-inconsistent reading perspective. Longer lookbacks on belief-consistent claims were found in the belief-consistent reading perspective but similar lookback times for both types of claims in the belief-inconsistent reading perspective. We further found better comprehension for belief-consistent information in the belief-consistent reading perspective but balanced comprehension levels in the belief-inconsistent reading perspective. |
Cengiz Acartürk; Ayşegül Özkan; Tuğçe Nur Pekçetin; Zuhal Ormanoğlu; Bilal Kırkıcı TURead: An eye movement dataset of Turkish reading Journal Article In: Behavior Research Methods, pp. 1–24, 2023. @article{Acartuerk2023, In this study, we present TURead, an eye movement dataset of silent and oral sentence reading in Turkish, an agglutinative language with a shallow orthography understudied in reading research. TURead provides empirical data to investigate the relationship between morphology and oculomotor control. We employ a target-word approach in which target words are manipulated by word length and by the addition of two commonly used suffixes in Turkish. The dataset contains well-established eye movement variables; prelexical characteristics such as vowel harmony and bigram-trigram frequencies and word features, such as word length, predictability, frequency, eye voice span measures, Cloze test scores of the root word and suffix predictabilities, as well as the scores obtained from two working memory tests. Our findings on fixation parameters and word characteristics are in line with the patterns reported in the relevant literature. |
Victoria I. Adedeji; Julie A. Kirkby; Martin R. Vasilev; Timothy J. Slattery Children's Reading of Sublexical Units in Years Three to Five: A Combined Analysis of Eye-Movements and Voice Recording Journal Article In: Scientific Studies of Reading, pp. 1–20, 2023. @article{Adedeji2023, Purpose: Children progress from making grapheme–phoneme connections to making grapho-syllabic connections before whole-word connections during reading development (Ehri, 2005a). More is known about the development of grapheme–phoneme connections than is known about grapho-syllabic connections. Therefore, we explored the trajectory of syllable use in English developing readers during oral reading. Method: Fifty-one English-speaking children (mean age: 8.9 years, 55% females, 88% monolinguals) in year groups three, four, and five read aloud sentences with an embedded target word, while their eye movements and voices were recorded. The targets contained six letters and were either one or two syllables. Result: Children in grade five had shorter gaze duration, shorter articulation duration, and larger spatial eye-voice span (EVS) than children in grade four. Children in grades three and four did not significantly differ on these measures. A syllable number effect was found for gaze duration but not for articulation duration and spatial EVS. Interestingly, one-syllable words took longer to process compared to two-syllable words, suggesting that more syllables may not always signify greater processing difficulty. Conclusion: Overall, children are sensitive to sublexical reading units; however, due to sample and stimuli limitations, these findings should be interpreted with caution and further research conducted. |
Rania Al-aqarbeh Transfer of L1 strategies in L2 processing of long-distance dependencies Journal Article In: Italian Journal of Linguistics, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 3–42, 2023. @article{Alaqarbeh2023, This study investigated the online processing of the relative clause dependency. The participants were native speakers of southern Jordanian Arabic, a grammatical resumption language, and were advanced learners of English as a second language, an intrusive resumption language. Another relevant difference between these two languages is that resumption in southern Jordanian Arabic ameliorates the relative clause island effect, while it does not in English. Two offline acceptability judgment tasks and two online eyetracking reading tasks were conducted in Jordanian Arabic (L1) and English (L2). The results revealed that the L2 learners had the pre-requisite grammatical knowledge to process the relative clause dependency in English. They seemed to posit a resumptive pronoun to resolve the dependency inside a relative clause island in their L1 and L2 alike. This result demonstrated that the L2 learners in the current study exhibited detailed syntactic processing. By doing so, they diverged from the processing behavior native speakers of English exhibited in processing similar stimuli in previous studies (Traxler & Pickering 1996; Omaki & Schulz 2011). In conclusion, the different processing behavior the L2 learners in this study manifested can be attributed to L1 transfer rather than to shallower, less detailed syntactic processing as proposed by the Shallow Structure Hypothesis. |
Abdulaziz Altamimi; Kathy Conklin Effects of pre-reading study and reading exposure on the learning and processing of collocations Journal Article In: TESOL Quarterly, pp. 1–23, 2023. @article{Altamimi2023, Little is known about the effect of pre-reading exposure on collocational learning. This study used eye-tracking and offline measures (form recall and recognition) to explore the effectiveness of pre-reading study and reading exposure on the processing and learning of novel collocations. Three learning conditions were evaluated: reading-only (target items were simply embedded in sentences), study-only (explicit learning of target items), and pre-reading study plus reading (explicit learning of target items followed by reading). Pre-reading study plus reading was the most effective learning condition, while reading-only was more effective than study-only. More specifically, studying collocations before reading led to increased attention when encountering the same collocation in subsequent reading. Furthermore, greater attention, in the pre-reading study phase, as indicated by fixations, was associated with larger collocational gains. |
Esther Álvarez-García; José Manuel Igoa González Lexico-Semantic Influence on Syntactic Processing: An Eye-Tracking Study with Spanish Relative Clauses Journal Article In: Brain Sciences, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 1–39, 2023. @article{AlvarezGarcia2023, This paper investigates the interaction between lexicosemantic and syntactic information in sentence processing by examining the online comprehension of Spanish relative clauses (RCs) of both restrictive and non-restrictive types. A corpus study shows that, in Spanish, a RC may be introduced by different function words (called relativizers), which differ in lexical frequency, as well as semantic features. Based on these facts, an eye-tracking experiment was conducted with the aim of analyzing whether lexicosemantic information could influence sentence processing at the early stages. The results report an early influence of lexicosemantic information not only when activating a relativizer but also when integrating it within the syntactic structure. Additionally, the semantic role played by each RC type seems to constrain sentence processing at different regions. Our results favor an interactive view of language processing, according to which language comprehension is guided from the early stages by different kinds of linguistic information rather than syntactic information alone. |
Simona Amenta; Jana Hasenäcker; Davide Crepaldi; Marco Marelli Prediction at the intersection of sentence context and word form: Evidence from eye-movements in reading Journal Article In: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 1081–1092, 2023. @article{Amenta2023, A key issue in language processing is how we recognize and understand words in sentences. Research on sentence reading indicates that the time we need to read a word depends on how (un)expected it is. Research on single word recognition shows that each word also has its own recognition dynamics based on the relation between its orthographic form and its meaning. It is not clear, however, how these sentence-level and word-level dynamics interact. In the present study, we examine the joint impact of these sources of information during sentence reading. We analyze existing eye-tracking and self-paced reading data (Frank et al., 2013, Behavior Research Methods, 45[4], 1182–1190) to investigate the interplay of sentence-level prediction (operationalized as Surprisal) and word Orthography-Semantics Consistency in activating word meaning in sentence processing. Results indicate that both Surprisal and Orthography-Semantics Consistency exert an influence on several reading measures. The shape of the observed interaction differs, but the results give compelling indication for a general trade-off between expectations based on sentence context and cues to meaning from word orthography. |
Rhona M. Amos; Robert J. Hartsuiker; Kilian G. Seeber; Martin J. Pickering Purposeful listening in challenging conditions: A study of prediction during consecutive interpreting in noise Journal Article In: PLoS ONE, vol. 18, pp. 1–27, 2023. @article{Amos2023, Prediction is often used during language comprehension. However, studies of prediction have tended to focus on L1 listeners in quiet conditions. Thus, it is unclear how listeners predict outside the laboratory and in specific communicative settings. Here, we report two eyetracking studies which used a visual-world paradigm to investigate whether prediction during a consecutive interpreting task differs from prediction during a listening task in L2 listeners, and whether L2 listeners are able to predict in the noisy conditions that might be associated with this communicative setting. In a first study, thirty-six Dutch-English bilinguals either just listened to, or else listened to and then consecutively interpreted, predictable sentences presented on speech-shaped sound. In a second study, another thirty-six Dutch-English bilinguals carried out the same tasks in clear speech. Our results suggest that L2 listeners predict the meaning of upcoming words in noisy conditions. However, we did not find that predictive eye movements depended on task, nor that L2 listeners predicted upcoming word form. We also did not find a difference in predictive patterns when we compared our two studies. Thus, L2 listeners predict in noisy circumstances, supporting theories which posit that prediction regularly takes place in comprehension, but we did not find evidence that a subsequent production task or noise affects semantic prediction. |
Rhona M. Amos; Kilian G. Seeber; Martin J. Pickering Student interpreters predict meaning while simultaneously interpreting - even before training Journal Article In: Interpreting, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 211–238, 2023. @article{Amos2023a, Prediction has long been considered advantageous in simultaneous interpreting, as it may allow interpreters to comprehend more rapidly and focus on their own production. However, evidence of prediction in simultaneous interpreting to date is relatively limited. In addition, it is unclear whether training in simultaneous interpreting influences predictive processing during a simultaneous interpreting task. We report on a longitudinal eye-tracking study which measured the timing and extent of prediction in students before and after two semesters of training in simultaneous interpreting. The students simultaneously interpreted sentences containing a highly predictable word as they viewed a screen containing four pictures, one of which depicted a highly predictable object. They made predictive eye movements to the highly predictable object both before and after their training in simultaneous interpreting. However, we did not find evidence that training influenced the timing or the magnitude of their prediction. |
Sally Andrews; Aaron Veldre; Roslyn Wong; Lili Yu; Erik D. Reichle How do task demands and aging affect lexical prediction during online reading of natural texts? Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 407–430, 2023. @article{Andrews2023, Facilitated identification of predictable words during online reading has been attributed to the generation of predictions about upcoming words. But highly predictable words are relatively infrequent in natural texts, raising questions about the utility and ubiquity of anticipatory prediction strategies. This study investigated the contribution of task demands and aging to predictability effects for short natural texts from the Provo corpus. The eye movements of 49 undergraduate students (mean age 21.2) and 46 healthy older adults (mean age 70.8) were recorded while they read these passages in two conditions: (a) reading for meaning to answer occasional comprehension questions; (b) proofreading to detect “transposed letter” lexical errors (e. g., clam instead of calm) in intermixed filler passages. The results suggested that the young adults, but not the older adults, engaged anticipatory prediction strategies to detect semantic errors in the proofreading condition, but neither age group showed any evidence of costs of prediction failures. Rather, both groups showed facilitated reading times for unexpected words that appeared in a high constraint within-sentence position. These findings suggest that predictability effects for natural texts reflect partial, probabilistic expectancies rather than anticipatory prediction of specific words. |
Keith S. Apfelbaum; Claire Goodwin; Christina Blomquist; Bob McMurray The development of lexical competition in written- and spoken-word recognition Journal Article In: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 196–219, 2023. @article{Apfelbaum2023, Efficient word recognition depends on the ability to overcome competition from overlapping words. The nature of the overlap depends on the input modality: spoken words have temporal overlap from other words that share phonemes in the same positions, whereas written words have spatial overlap from other words with letters in the same places. It is unclear how these differences in input format affect the ability to recognise a word and the types of competitors that become active while doing so. This study investigates word recognition in both modalities in children between 7 and 15. Children complete a visual-world paradigm eye-tracking task that measures competition from words with several types of overlap, using identical word lists between modalities. Results showed correlated developmental changes in the speed of target recognition in both modalities. In addition, developmental changes were seen in the efficiency of competitor suppression for some competitor types in the spoken modality. These data reveal some developmental continuity in the process of word recognition independent of modality but also some instances of independence in how competitors are activated. Stimuli, data, and analyses from this project are available at: https://osf.io/eav72. |
Eléonore Arbona; Kilian G. Seeber; Marianne Gullberg Semantically related gestures facilitate language comprehension during simultaneous interpreting Journal Article In: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 425–439, 2023. @article{Arbona2023, Manual co-speech gestures can facilitate language comprehension, but do they influence language comprehension in simultaneous interpreters, and if so, is this influence modulated by simultaneous interpreting (SI) and/or by interpreting experience? In a picture-matching task, 24 professional interpreters and 24 professional translators were exposed to utterances accompanied by semantically matching representational gestures, semantically unrelated pragmatic gestures, or no gestures while viewing passively (interpreters and translators) or during SI (interpreters only). During passive viewing, both groups were faster with semantically related than with semantically unrelated gestures. During SI, interpreters showed the same result. The results suggest that language comprehension is sensitive to the semantic relationship between speech and gesture, and facilitated when speech and gestures are semantically linked. This sensitivity is not modulated by SI or interpreting experience. Thus, despite simultaneous interpreters' extreme language use, multimodal language processing facilitates comprehension in SI the same way as in all other language processing. |
Katharine Aveni; Juweiriya Ahmed; Arielle Borovsky; Ken McRae; Mary E. Jenkins; Katherine Sprengel; J. Alexander Fraser; Joseph B. Orange; Thea Knowles; Angela C. Roberts Predictive language comprehension in Parkinson's disease Journal Article In: PLoS ONE, vol. 18, pp. 1–32, 2023. @article{Aveni2023, Verb and action knowledge deficits are reported in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD), even in the absence of dementia or mild cognitive impairment. However, the impact of these deficits on combinatorial semantic processing is less well understood. Following on previous verb and action knowledge findings, we tested the hypothesis that PD impairs the ability to integrate event-based thematic fit information during online sentence processing. Specifically, we anticipated persons with PD with age-typical cognitive abilities would perform more poorly than healthy controls during a visual world paradigm task requiring participants to predict a target object constrained by the thematic fit of the agent-verb combination. Twenty-four PD and 24 healthy age-matched participants completed comprehensive neuropsychological assessments. We recorded participants' eye movements as they heard predictive sentences (The fisherman rocks the boat) alongside target, agent-related, verb-related, and unrelated images. We tested effects of group (PD/control) on gaze using growth curve models. There were no significant differences between PD and control participants, suggesting that PD participants successfully and rapidly use combinatory thematic fit information to predict upcoming language. Baseline sentences with no predictive information (e.g., Look at the drum) confirmed that groups showed equivalent sentence processing and eye movement patterns. Additionally, we conducted an exploratory analysis contrasting PD and controls' performance on low-motion-content versus high-motion-content verbs. This analysis revealed fewer predictive fixations in high-motion sentences only for healthy older adults. PD participants may adapt to their disease by relying on spared, non-action-simulation-based language processing mechanisms, although this conclusion is speculative, as the analyses of high- vs. low-motion items was highly limited by the study design. These findings provide novel evidence that individuals with PD match healthy adults in their ability to use verb meaning to predict upcoming nouns despite previous findings of verb semantic impairment in PD across a variety of tasks. |
Hyunah Baek; Wonil Choi; Peter C. Gordon Reading spaced and unspaced Korean text: Evidence from eye-tracking during reading Journal Article In: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 76, no. 5, pp. 1072–1085, 2023. @article{Baek2023, In written Korean, spaces appear between phrasal units (“eojeols”). In Experiment 1, participants read sentences in which space information had been manipulated. Results indicated that removing spaces or replacing them with a symbol hindered reading, but this effect was not as disruptive as previously found in English. Experiment 2 presented sentences varying in the proportion of eojeols that ended with postpositional particles as well as the presence/absence of spaces. Results showed that space removal interfered with reading, but its effects were weaker when the sentence contained more postpositional particles. This suggests that postpositional particles provide an extra cue to word segmentation in Korean texts. These findings are discussed in relation to the unique characteristics of the Korean writing system and to the models of eye-movement control during reading in different languages. |
Andreas Bär; Hannah E. Bär; Max Schneider; Fritz Renner The pupil as a window to the mind's eye: Greater emotionality of episodic imagery than verbal visualisation of rewarding activities Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 1–11, 2023. @article{Baer2023, Episodic imagery has been shown to amplify emotion more than abstract verbal representations. This may prove useful for clinical interventions aiming to motivate adaptive behaviours. However, most findings rely on self-report measures and verbal control conditions not designed to actively prevent automatic engagement in episodic imagery. We thus investigated the difference in emotionality between Episodic Imagery (EI) and Verbal Visualisation (VV) using pupil dilation as a physiological measure of emotional arousal. A sample of 75 participants listened to audio recordings describing activities in a positive manner. Subjects were randomly assigned to the EI or VV condition. Participants in the EI condition imagined performing the described activity, while participants in the VV condition visualised the words constituting the descriptions. As predicted, EI led to greater pupil dilation than VV, independent of mental effort. Self-reported anticipatory reward assessed throughout the task was also greater for EI than VV, yet no difference was found for arousal, anticipated reward or motivation. Our findings extend previous work demonstrating the property of episodic imagery to amplify emotion to a physiological level using pupillometry. However, we did not find a transfer to motivation, which is in line with previous studies using verbal control conditions for episodic imagery. |
Monica Barbira; Mireille J. Babineaua; Anne-Caroline Fiévét; Anne Christophe; Anne-Caroline Fiéveta; Anne Christophe Rapid infant learning of syntactic–semantic links Journal Article In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120, no. 1, pp. 1–6, 2023. @article{Barbira2023, In the second year of life, infants begin to rapidly acquire the lexicon of their native lan- guage. A key learning mechanism underlying this acceleration is syntactic bootstrapping: the use of hidden cues in grammar to facilitate vocabulary learning. How infants forge the syntactic–semantic links that underlie this mechanism, however, remains specula- tive. A hurdle for theories is identifying computationally light strategies that have high precision within the complexity of the linguistic signal. Here, we presented 20-mo-old infants with novel grammatical elements in a complex natural language environment and measured their resultant vocabulary expansion. We found that infants can learn and exploit a natural language syntactic–semantic link in less than 30 min. The rapid speed of acquisition of a new syntactic bootstrap indicates that even emergent syntactic–semantic links can accelerate language learning. The results suggest that infants employ a cognitive network of efficient learning strategies to self-supervise language development. |
Alisa Baron; Vanessa Harwood; Daniel Kleinman; Luca Campanelli; Joseph Molski; Nicole Landi; Julia Irwin Where on the face do we look during phonemic restoration: An eye-tracking study Journal Article In: Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 1–12, 2023. @article{Baron2023, Face to face communication typically involves audio and visual components to the speech signal. To examine the effect of task demands on gaze patterns in response to a speaking face, adults participated in two eye-tracking experiments with an audiovisual (articulatory information from the mouth was visible) and a pixelated condition (articulatory information was not visible). Further, task demands were manipulated by having listeners respond in a passive (no response) or an active (button press response) context. The active experiment required participants to discriminate between speech stimuli and was designed to mimic environmental situations which require one to use visual information to disambiguate the speaker's message, simulating different listening conditions in real-world settings. Stimuli included a clear exemplar of the syllable /ba/ and a second exemplar in which the formant initial consonant was reduced creating an /a/−like consonant. Consistent with our hypothesis, results revealed that the greatest fixations to the mouth were present in the audiovisual active experiment and visual articulatory information led to a phonemic restoration effect for the /a/ speech token. In the pixelated condition, participants fixated on the eyes, and discrimination of the deviant token within the active experiment was significantly greater than the audiovisual condition. These results suggest that when required to disambiguate changes in speech, adults may look to the mouth for additional cues to support processing when it is available. |
Anthony Beh; Paul V. McGraw; Denis Schluppeck The effects of simulated hemianopia on eye movements during text reading Journal Article In: Vision Research, vol. 204, pp. 1–14, 2023. @article{Beh2023, Vision loss is a common, devastating complication of cerebral strokes. In some cases the complete contra-lesional visual field is affected, leading to problems with routine tasks and, notably, the ability to read. Although visual information crucial for reading is imaged on the foveal region, readers often extract useful parafoveal information from the next word or two in the text. In hemianopic field loss, parafoveal processing is compromised, shrinking the visual span and resulting in slower reading speeds. Recent approaches to rehabilitation using perceptual training have been able to demonstrate some recovery of useful visual capacity. As gains in visual sensitivity were most pronounced at the border of the scotoma, it may be possible to use training to restore some of the lost visual span for reading. As restitutive approaches often involve prolonged training sessions, it would be beneficial to know how much recovery is required to restore reading ability. To address this issue, we employed a gaze-contingent paradigm using a low-pass filter to blur one side of the text, functionally simulating a visual field defect. The degree of blurring acts as a proxy for visual function recovery that could arise from restitutive strategies, and allows us to evaluate and quantify the degree of visual recovery required to support normal reading fluency in patients. Because reading ability changes with age, we recruited a group of younger participants, and another with older participants who are closer in age to risk groups for ischaemic strokes. Our results show that changes in patterns of eye movement observed in hemianopic loss can be captured using this simulated reading environment. This opens up the possibility of using participants with normal visual function to help identify the most promising strategies for ameliorating hemianopic loss, before translation to patient groups. |
Ali Behzadnia; Signy Wegener; Audrey Burki; Elisabeth Beyersmann The role of oral vocabulary when L2 speakers read novel words: A complex word training study Journal Article In: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, pp. 1–12, 2023. @article{Behzadnia2023, The present study asked whether oral vocabulary training can facilitate reading in a second language (L2). Fifty L2 speakers of English received oral training over three days on complex novel words, with predictable and unpredictable spellings, composed of novel stems and existing suffixes (i.e., vishing, vishes, vished). After training, participants read the novel word stems for the first time (i.e., trained and untrained), embedded in sentences, and their eye movements were monitored. The eye-Tracking data revealed shorter looking times for trained than untrained stems, and for stems with predictable than unpredictable spellings. In contrast to monolingual speakers of English, the interaction between training and spelling predictability was not significant, suggesting that L2 speakers did not generate orthographic skeletons that were robust enough to affect their eye-movement behaviour when seeing the trained novel words for the first time in print. |
Robyn Berghoff; Emanuel Bylund L2 activation during L1 processing is increased by exposure but decreased by proficiency Journal Article In: International Journal of Bilingualism, pp. 1–15, 2023. @article{Berghoff2023, Aims: The study investigates the effects of L2 proficiency and L2 exposure on L2-to-L1 cross-language activation (CLA) in L1-dominant bilinguals. In so doing, it tests the predictions made by prominent models of the bilingual lexicon regarding how language experience modulates CLA. Design: The participants (27 L1-dominant L1 English–L2 Afrikaans speakers) completed a visual world eye-tracking task, conducted entirely in English, in which they saw four objects on a screen: a target object, which they were instructed to click on; a competitor object, whose Afrikaans label overlapped phonetically at onset with the English target object label; and two unrelated distractors. Language background data were collected using the Language History Questionnaire 3.0. Analysis: A growth curve analysis was performed to investigate the extent to which the background variables modulated looks to the Afrikaans competitor item versus to the two unrelated distractor items. Findings: Increased L2 exposure was associated with greater CLA, which is consistent with models suggesting that exposure modulates the likelihood and speed with which a linguistic item becomes activated. Moreover, CLA was reduced at higher levels of L2 proficiency, which aligns with accounts of the bilingual lexicon positing that parasitism of the L2 on the L1 is reduced at higher proficiency levels, leading to reduced CLA. Originality: L2 activation during L1 processing and the variables that modulate it are not well documented, particularly among L1 speakers with limited proficiency in and exposure to the L2. Significance: The findings contribute to the evaluation of competing accounts of bilingual lexical organization. |
Elisabeth Beyersmann; Signy Wegener; Nenagh Kemp That's good news: Semantic congruency effects in emoji processing Journal Article In: Journal of Media Psychology, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 17–27, 2023. @article{Beyersmann2023, The use of emojis in digital communication has become increasingly popular, but how emojis are processed and integrated in reading processes remains underexplored. This study used eye-tracking to monitor university students' (n = 47) eye movements while reading single-line text messages with a face emoji embedded medially. Messages contained a semantically congruent emoji (e.g., That's good news tell me more), a semantically incongruent emoji (e.g., That's good news tell me more), or a dash (e.g., That's good news - tell me more). Results revealed that emoji congruency did not influence early fixation measures (first fixation duration and gaze duration), nor the probability of regressions. However, there was a significant congruency effect in total reading time and trial dwell time, showing that incongruence incurred a processing cost. The present results extend previously reported semantic congruency effects in sentence reading to the processing of emojis. This result suggests that the semantic content conveyed by face emojis is integrated with sentence context late in processing. We further found that the use of congruent emojis improved the relationship between sender and receiver: Ratings collected separately suggested that message senders were liked better if they included congruent than incongruent emojis. Overall, emojis attracted attention: Participants were twice as likely to fixate on emojis than on dashes, and to fixate on emojis for longer. |
Elisabeth Beyersmann; Signy Wegener; Valentina N. Pescuma; Kate Nation; Danielle Colenbrander; Anne Castles The effect of oral vocabulary training on reading novel complex words Journal Article In: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 76, no. 6, pp. 1321 –1332, 2023. @article{Beyersmann2023a, Do readers benefit from their knowledge of the phonological form and meaning of stems when seeing them embedded in morphologically complex words for the first time in print? This question was addressed using a word learning paradigm. Participants were trained on novel spoken word stems and their meanings (“tump”). Following training, participants then saw the novel stems for the first time in print, either in combination with a real affix (tumpist, tumpor) or with a non-affix (tumpel, tumpain). Untrained items were also included to test whether the affix effect was modulated by the prior training of the spoken word stems. First, the complex words were embedded in meaningful sentences which participants read as their eye movements were recorded (first orthographic exposure). Second, participants were asked to read aloud and spell each individual complex novel word (second orthographic exposure). Participants spent less time fixating on words that included trained stems compared with untrained stems. However, the training effect did not change depending on whether stems were accompanied by a real affix or a non-affix. In the reading aloud and spelling tasks, there was no effect of training, suggesting that the effect of oral vocabulary training did not extend beyond the initial print exposure. The results indicate that familiarity with spoken stems influences how complex words containing those stems are processed when being read for the first time. Our findings highlight the flexibility and adaptability of the morphological processing system to novel complex words during the first print exposure. |
Elisabeth Beyersmann; Signy Wegener; Jasmine Spencer; Anne Castles Acquisition of orthographic forms via spoken complex word training Journal Article In: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 739–750, 2023. @article{Beyersmann2023b, This study used a novel word-training paradigm to examine the integration of spoken word knowledge when learning to read morphologically complex novel words. Australian primary school children including Grades 3–5 were taught the oral form of a set of novel morphologically complex words (e.g., (/vɪbɪŋ/, /vɪbd/, /vɪbz/), with a second set serving as untrained items. Following oral training, participants saw the printed form of the novel word stems for the first time (e.g., vib), embedded in sentences, while their eye movements were monitored. Half of the stems were spelled predictably and half were spelled unpredictably. Reading times were shorter for orally trained stems with predictable than unpredictable spellings and this difference was greater for trained than untrained items. These findings suggest that children were able to form robust orthographic expectations of the embedded morphemic stems during spoken word learning, which may have occurred automatically without any explicit control of the applied mappings, despite still being in the early stages of reading development. Following the sentence reading task, children completed a reading-aloud task where they were exposed to the novel orthographic forms for a second time. The findings are discussed in the context of theories of reading acquisition. |
Bruno Bianchi; Rodrigo Loredo; María Fonseca; Julia Carden; Virginia Jaichenco; Titus Malsburg; Diego E. Shalom; Juan Kamienkowski Neural bases of predictions during natural reading of known statements: An electroencephalography and eye movements co-registration study Journal Article In: Neuroscience, vol. 519, pp. 131–146, 2023. @article{Bianchi2023, Predictions of incoming words performed during reading have an impact on how the reader moves their eyes and on the electrical brain potentials. Eye tracking (ET) experiments show that less predictable words are fixated for longer periods of times. Electroencephalography (EEG) experiments show that these words elicit a more negative potential around 400 ms (N400) after the word onset when reading one word at a time (foveated reading). Nevertheless, there was no N400 potential during the foveated reading of previously known sentences (memory-encoded), which suggests that the prediction of words from memory-encoded sentences is based on different mechanisms than predictions performed on common sentences. Here, we performed an ET-EEG co-registration experiment where participants read common and memory-encoded sentences. Our results show that the N400 potential disappear when the reader recognises the sentence. Furthermore, time–frequency analyses show a larger alpha lateralisation and a beta power increase for memory-encoded sentences. This suggests a more distributed attention and an active maintenance of the cognitive set, in concordance to the predictive coding framework. |
Christina M. Blomquist; Rochelle S. Newman; Jan Edwards The development of spoken word recognition in informative and uninformative sentence contexts Journal Article In: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 227, pp. 1–10, 2023. @article{Blomquist2023, Although there is ample evidence documenting the development of spoken word recognition from infancy to adolescence, it is still unclear how development of word-level processing interacts with higher-level sentence processing, such as the use of lexical–semantic cues, to facilitate word recognition. We investigated how the ability to use an informative verb (e.g., draws) to predict an upcoming word (picture) and suppress competition from similar-sounding words (pickle) develops throughout the school-age years. Eye movements of children from two age groups (5–6 years and 9–10 years) were recorded while the children heard a sentence with an informative or neutral verb (The brother draws/gets the small picture) in which the final word matched one of a set of four pictures, one of which was a cohort competitor (pickle). Both groups demonstrated use of the informative verb to more quickly access the target word and suppress cohort competition. Although the age groups showed similar ability to use semantic context to facilitate processing, the older children demonstrated faster lexical access and more robust cohort suppression in both informative and uninformative contexts. This suggests that development of word-level processing facilitates access of top-down linguistic cues that support more efficient spoken language processing. Whereas developmental differences in the use of semantic context to facilitate lexical access were not explained by vocabulary knowledge, differences in the ability to suppress cohort competition were explained by vocabulary. This suggests a potential role for vocabulary knowledge in the resolution of lexical competition and perhaps the influence of lexical competition dynamics on vocabulary development. |
Christina Blomquist; Bob MCMurray The development of lexical inhibition in spoken word recognition Journal Article In: Developmental Psychology, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 186–206, 2023. @article{Blomquist2023a, As a spoken word unfolds over time, similar sounding words (cap and cat) compete until one word “wins”. Lexical competition becomes more efficient from infancy through adolescence. We examined one potential mechanism underlying this development: lexical inhibition, by which activated candidates suppress competitors. In Experiment 1, younger (7–8 years) and older (12–13 years) children heard words (cap) in which the onset was manipulated to briefly boost competition from a cohort competitor (cat). This was compared to a condition with a nonword (cack) onset that would not inhibit the target. Words were presented in a visual world task during which eye movements were recorded. Both groups showed less looking to the target when perceiving the competitor-splice relative to the nonword-splice, showing engagement of lexical inhibition. Exploratory analyses of linguistic adaptation across the experiment revealed that older children demonstrated consistent lexical inhibition across the experiment and younger children did not, initially showing no effect in the first half of trials and then a robust effect in the latter half. In Experiment 2, adults also displayed consistent lexical inhibition in the same task. These findings suggest that younger children do not consistently engage lexical inhibition in typical listening but can quickly bring it online in response to certain linguistic experiences. Computational modeling showed that age-related differences are best explained by increased engagement of inhibition rather than growth in activation. These findings suggest that continued development of lexical inhibition in later childhood may underlie increases in efficiency of spoken word recognition. |
Rolando Bonandrini; Eraldo Paulesu; Daniela Traficante; Elena Capelli; Marco Marelli; Claudio Luzzatti Lateralized reading in the healthy brain: A behavioral and computational study on the nature of the visual field effect Journal Article In: Neuropsychologia, vol. 180, pp. 1–16, 2023. @article{Bonandrini2023, Despite its widespread use to measure functional lateralization of language in healthy subjects, the neurocognitive bases of the visual field effect in lateralized reading are still debated. Crucially, the lack of knowledge on the nature of the visual field effect is accompanied by a lack of knowledge on the relative impact of psycholinguistic factors on its measurement, thus potentially casting doubts on its validity as a functional laterality measure. In this study, an eye-tracking-controlled tachistoscopic lateralized lexical decision task (Experiment 1) was administered to 60 right-handed and 60 left-handed volunteers and word length, orthographic neighborhood, word frequency, and imageability were manipulated. The magnitude of visual field effect was bigger in right-handed than in left-handed participants. Across the whole sample, a visual field-by-frequency interaction was observed, whereby a comparatively smaller effect of word frequency was detected in the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) than in the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH). In a subsequent computational study (Experiment 2), efficient (LH) and inefficient (RH) activation of lexical orthographic nodes was modelled by means of the Naïve Discriminative Learning approach. Computational data simulated the effect of visual field and its interaction with frequency observed in the Experiment 1. Data suggest that the visual field effect can be biased by word frequency. Less distinctive connections between orthographic cues and lexical/semantic output units in the RH than in the LH can account for the emergence of the visual field effect and its interaction with word frequency. |
Schea Fissel Brannick; Emily Sebranek; Emily Anderson; Ileana Ratiu; Arianna N. LaCroix Empathy interacts with second language proficiency to modify executive control of attention to social information. Journal Article In: Translational Issues in Psychological Science, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 444–459, 2023. @article{Brannick2023, A large body of research suggests that bilinguals show a unique, lifelong relationship between language experience and executive control, but the nature of this relationship is unclear as much of this work has not addressed the role of social functioning. The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between language experience and social functioning by first exploring relationships between second language experience and two indices of social functioning: empathy and social cognition. We then explored whether these variables impact executive control of attention to incongruent trials over time. Thirty-eight adults with a range of second language experience completed surveys of language experience, empathy, and social cognition, as well as a traditional Flanker task and a socially modified version of the Flanker task. Reaction times, fixation counts, and blinking counts were measured by trial on each Flanker task. Second language experience did not predict empathy or social cognition, which was contrary to what was predicted. On the Flanker tasks, greater empathy interacted with bilingualism to improve executive control and behavioral responses to incongruent social stimuli, but interacted with worse social cognition to broaden attention to incongruent social stimuli, but with greater inhibitory costs and impaired performance. Highly empathetic bilinguals showed unique temporal patterns of broadening attention to incongruent stimuli early in trials, which then enhanced executive control and behavioral performance in subsequent trials. These findings point to the importance of measuring social variables in bilingual and clinical populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) |
Jon Burnsky; Franziska Kretzschmar; Erika Mayer; Adrian Staub In: Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 821–842, 2023. @article{Burnsky2023, Two eye movement/EEG co-registration experiments investigated effects of predictability, visual contrast, and parafoveal preview in normal reading. Replicating previous studies, in Experiment 1 contrast and predictability additively influenced fixation durations, and in Experiment 2 invalid preview eliminated the predictability effect on early eye movement measures. In both experiments, predictability influenced the amplitude of the N400 component of the fixation-related potential. In Experiment 1, visual contrast did not influence the N400, and in Experiment 2, the effect of predictability on the N400 was larger with invalid preview, in opposition to the eye movement pattern. The N400 may reflect a late process of accessing conceptual representations while the duration of the eyes' fixation on a word is sensitive to the difficulty of perceptual encoding and early stages of word recognition. The effects of predictability on both fixation duration and the N400 suggest an influence of this variable at two distinct processing stages. |
Juan Escalante; Grant Eckstein; Troy L. Cox; Steven Luke Multiple-choice reading behaviors of ESL students: An eye-tracking study Journal Article In: TESOL Communications, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1973–1974, 2023. @article{Escalante2023, Only recently has eye-tracking been used to investigate test-taker reading behavior, and results have been primarily used to confirm a range of cognitive tasks elicited by test items. This study explores test taker reading behavior for its own sake by describing how ESL readers of different proficiency levels behaviorally view multiple-choice passages and test items at different difficulty levels. Data were gathered from 51 students at three proficiency levels attending a university-sponsored intensive English program (IEP). Participants read eight validated reading comprehension items at varying difficulty levels while their eye movements were recorded on the passage, multiple-choice stem, correct answer, and distractors. Reading behavior demonstrated that language proficiency had a limited effect while passage difficulty had a stronger effect on reading behavior: participants gave less visual attention to the reading passage and correct answers within easier items and when they had higher language proficiency. The interaction of proficiency and item difficult on reading behavior is important in understanding how learners experience tests. |
Michael A. Eskenazi Best practices for cleaning eye movement data in reading research Journal Article In: Behavior Research Methods, pp. 1–11, 2023. @article{Eskenazi2023, One challenge that comes with studying eye movement behavior is deciding how to clean the eye movement data (e.g., fixation durations) before conducting analyses. Reading researchers must decide which data cleaning methods they will use and which thresholds they will set to remove eye movements that are not reflective of lexical processing. The purpose of this project was to determine what data cleaning methods are typically used and if there are any consequences of using different data cleaning methods. In the first study, an analysis of 192 recently published articles indicated that there is inconsistency in the reporting and application of data cleaning methods. In the second study, three different data cleaning methods were applied based on the literature analysis in the first study. Analyses were conducted to determine the impact of different data cleaning methods on three commonly studied effects in reading research (frequency, predictability, and length). Overall, standardized estimates decreased for each effect when more data were removed; however, removing more data also resulted in decreased variance. As a result, effects remained significant with each data cleaning method, and simulated power remained high for both a moderate and small sample size. Effect sizes remained consistent for most effects but decreased for the length effect as more data were removed. Seven suggestions are provided that are based on open science practices with the intention of helping researchers, reviewers, and the field as a whole. |
Nikki G. Fackler; Peter C. Gordon Mask-related costs in measuring preview benefit: Evidence from a distributional analysis based on target word reading times Journal Article In: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, vol. 85, no. 7, pp. 2475–2487, 2023. @article{Fackler2023, Skilled reading involves processing the upcoming word in parafoveal vision before it is fixated, leading to shorter fixations on that word. This phenomenon, parafoveal preview benefit, is a key component of theoretical models of reading; it is measured using the invisible boundary paradigm, in which reading times on a target word are compared for instances when preview is accurate and when the target word is masked while in the parafovea. However, parafoveal masks have been shown to induce unintentional processing costs, thereby inflating measures of preview benefit. The degraded mask has been explored as a potential solution to this problem, leading to mixed results. While previous work has analyzed the preview effect by comparing mean reading times on the target word, the present study provides a more comprehensive analysis by examining the distribution of the preview effect across target word fixation times for unrelated and degraded masks. Participants read sentences containing target words whose preview was either identical, unrelated, or degraded, and their eye movements were recorded. Analyses revealed that although there were no mean differences between reading times for the unrelated and degraded conditions, the pattern of the effects varied as a function of target word fixation times. Unrelated masks resulted in positively sloped generally linear delta plots, while degraded masks resulted in relatively flat delta plots for fixations longer than 200 ms. These differences suggest that different cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing of the two mask types. Implications for understanding and measuring preview benefit are discussed. |
Mojgan Farahani; Vijay Parsa; Philip C. Doyle Auditory-perceptual and pupillometric evaluation of vocal roughness and listening effort in tracheoesophageal speech Journal Article In: Journal of Voice, pp. 1–16, 2023. @article{Farahani2023, Objectives: This study evaluated auditory-perceptual judgments of perceived vocal roughness (VR) and listening effort (LE) along with pupillometric responses in response to speech samples produced by tracheoesophageal (TE) talkers. Methods: Twenty normal-hearing, naive young adults (eight men and twelve women) served as listeners. Listeners were divided into two groups: (1) a with-anchor (WA) group (four men and six women) and (2) a no-anchor (NA) group (four men and six women). All were presented with speech samples produced by twenty TE talkers; listeners evaluated two auditory-perceptual dimensions—VR and LE—using visual analog scales. Anchors were provided to the WA group as an external referent for their ratings. In addition, during the auditory-perceptual task, each listener's pupil reactions also were recorded with peak pupil dilation (PPD) measures extracted as a physiologic indicator associated with the listening task. Results: High interrater reliability was obtained for both the WA and NA groups. High correlations also were observed between auditory-perceptual ratings of roughness and LE, and between PPD values and ratings of both dimensions for the WA group. The inclusion of an anchor during the auditory-perceptual task improved interrater reliability ratings, but it also imposed an increased demand on listeners. Conclusions: Data obtained offer insights into the relationship between subjective indices of voice quality (ie, auditory-perceptual evaluation) and physiologic responses (PPD) to the abnormal voice quality that characterizes TE talkers. Furthermore, these data provide information on the inclusion/exclusion of audio anchors and potential increases in listener demand in response to abnormal voice quality. |
Argyro Fella; Maria Loizou; Christoforos Christoforou; Timothy C. Papadopoulos Eye movement evidence for simultaneous cognitive processing in reading Journal Article In: Children, vol. 10, no. 12, pp. 1–17, 2023. @article{Fella2023, Measuring simultaneous processing, a reliable predictor of reading development and reading difficulties (RDs), has traditionally involved cognitive tasks that test reaction or response time, which only capture the efficiency at the output processing stage and neglect the internal stages of information processing. However, with eye-tracking methodology, we can reveal the underlying temporal and spatial processes involved in simultaneous processing and investigate whether these processes are equivalent across chronological or reading age groups. This study used eye-tracking to investigate the simultaneous processing abilities of 15 Grade 6 and 15 Grade 3 children with RDs and their chronological-age controls (15 in each Grade). The Grade 3 typical readers were used as reading-level (RL) controls for the Grade 6 RD group. Participants were required to listen to a question and then point to a picture among four competing illustrations demonstrating the spatial relationship raised in the question. Two eye movements (fixations and saccades) were recorded using the EyeLink 1000 Plus eye-tracking system. The results showed that the Grade 3 RD group produced more and longer fixations than their CA controls, indicating that the pattern of eye movements of young children with RD is typically deficient compared to that of their typically developing counterparts when processing verbal and spatial stimuli simultaneously. However, no differences were observed between the Grade 6 groups in eye movement measures. Notably, the Grade 6 RD group outperformed the RL-matched Grade 3 group, yielding significantly fewer and shorter fixations. The discussion centers on the role of the eye-tracking method as a reliable means of deciphering the simultaneous cognitive processing involved in learning. |
Leigh B. Fernandez; Ricarda Bothe; Shanley E. M. Allen The role of L1 reading direction on L2 perceptual span: An eye-tracking study investigating Hindi and Urdu speakers Journal Article In: Second Language Research, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 1–23, 2023. @article{Fernandez2023b, In the current study we used the gaze-contingent moving window paradigm to directly compare the second language (L2) English perceptual span of two groups that speak languages with essentially the same lexicon and grammar but crucially with different writing directions (and scripts): Hindi (read left to right) and Urdu (read right to left). This is the first study to directly compare first language (L1) speakers of languages that differ primarily in reading direction in a common L2, English. While Urdu speakers had a slightly faster reading rate, we found no additional differences between Hindi and Urdu speakers when reading L2 English; both groups showed a perceptual span between 9 and 11 characters to the right of the fixation based on saccade length. This suggests little to no influence of L1 reading direction on L2 perceptual span, but rather that L2 perceptual span is influenced by allocation of attention during reading. Our data are in line with research by Leung et al. (2014) finding that L2 speakers have a smaller perceptual span than native speakers (L1 perceptual span is approximately 15 characters to the right of the fixation). This most likely stems from the increased demands associated with reading in a second language, which led to a reduction in the amount of attention that can be allocated outside of the current fixation. |
Leigh B. Fernandez; Christoph Scheepers; Shanley E. M. Allen Cross-language semantic and orthographic parafoveal processing by bilingual L1 German-L2 English readers Journal Article In: Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, pp. 1–15, 2023. @article{Fernandez2023, In a recent study, Fernandez et al. (2021) investigated parafoveal processing in L1 English and L1 German-L2 English readers using the gaze contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). Unexpectedly, L2 readers derived an interference from a non-cognate translation parafoveal mask (arrow vs. pfeil), but derived a benefit from a German orthographic parafoveal mask (arrow vs. pfexk) when reading in English. The authors argued that bilingual readers incurred a switching cost from the complete German word, and derived a benefit by keeping both lexicons active from the partial German word. In this registered report, we further test this finding with L1 German-L2 English participants using improved items, but with the sentences presented in German. We were able to replicate the non-cognate translation interference but not the orthographic facilitation. Follow up comparisons showed that all parafoveal masks evoked similar inhibition, suggesting that bilingual readers do not process non-cognate semantic or orthographic information parafoveally. |
Leigh B. Fernandez; Agnesa Xheladini; Shanley E. M. Allen Proficient L2 readers do not have a risky reading strategy Journal Article In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 854–872, 2023. @article{Fernandez2023a, Proficient first-language (L1) readers of alphabetic languages that are read left-to-right typically have a perceptual span of 3–4 characters to the left and 14–15 characters to the right of the foveal fixation. Given that second-language (L2) processing requires more cognitive resources, we hypothesize that L2ers will have a smaller perceptual span than L1ers, and may rely on a compensatory risky reading strategy with a more symmetrical perceptual span similar to that seen in older L1 adults. Here, we test the size and symmetry of the perceptual span in German L1/English L2ers reading in English. We manipulate the amount of information available (3,6,9 characters-left/3,9,15 characters-right) during reading, and also account for the influence of English skills. Results show that L2ers benefit from an increase of window size from 3 to 6 characters to the left, and from 3 to 9 characters to the right, with higher-skilled L2ers further benefiting from an increase to 15 characters to the right. Contrary to our hypothesis, proficient L2ers exhibit an asymmetric perceptual span similar to college-aged L1ers and do not employ a compensatory risky reading strategy. This suggests that L1 and L2 language processing are not qualitatively different, but are rather modulated by individual differences. |
Laura Fernández-Arroyo; Nuria Sagarra; Kaylee Fernández Differential effects of language proficiency and use on L2 lexical prediction Journal Article In: The Mental Lexicon, pp. 1–26, 2023. @article{FernandezArroyo2023, Language experience is essential for SLA. Yet, studies comparing the role of L2 proficiency and L2 use on L2 processing are scant, and there are no studies examining how these variables modulate learners' ability to generalize grammatical associations to new instances. This study investigates whether L2 proficiency and L2 use affect L2 stress-tense suffix associations (a stressed syllable cuing a present suffix, and an unstressed syllable cuing a preterit suffix) using eye-tracking. Spanish monolinguals and English learners of Spanish varying in L2 proficiency and L2 use saw two verbs (e.g., firma-firmó ‘(s)he signs/signed'), heard a sentence containing one of the verbs, and chose the verb they had heard. Both groups looked at target verbs above chance before hearing the suffix, but the monolinguals did so more accurately and earlier than the learners. The learners recognized past verbs faster than present verbs, were faster with higher than lower L2 proficiency, and later with higher than lower L2 use. Finally, higher L2 proficiency yielded earlier morphological activation but higher L2 use produced later morphological activation, indicating that L2 proficiency and L2 use affect L2 word processing differently. We discuss the contribution of these findings to language acquisition and processing models, as well as models of general cognition. |
Francesca Foppolo; Greta Mazzaggio; Ludovico Franco; Maria Rita Manzini A group of researchers are testing pseudopartitives in Italian: Notional number is not the key to the facts Journal Article In: Glossa Psycholinguistics, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–34, 2023. @article{Foppolo2023, The present paper focuses on pseudopartitive constructions headed by quantifier, collective, or container nouns (like a lot of senators, a group of students, a bottle of pills) followed by a singular or a plural verb. We compared these structures with superficially similar adnominal structures of the form NP1[−PL] prep NP2[PL] (e.g., the level of the lakes is/are) in Italian in an acceptability judgment study (Experiment 1), a forced-choice task (Experiment 2), and an eye tracking reading study (Experiment 3). Two major findings were consistent across all studies. First, verb agreement in pseudopartitives always patterned differently from controls. Second, albeit an overall preference for singular verbs was observed, a gradient difference emerged between adnominal controls and pseudopartitives, and among pseudopartitives headed by different nouns. We explain such variability in terms of the availability of a measure interpretation (e.g., pills in the measure of a bottle vs. a bottle containing pills) which is linked to the type of the pseudopartitive's head noun. While in non-pseudopartitive adnominal structures only one parse is allowed by the grammar, in pseudopartitives a given head noun may admit or block a structural configuration in which the plural feature of the embedded constituent (e.g., of students, modifying a group) can determine the plurality of the subsequent verb. We conclude that verb agreement in pseudopartitives is a grammatical phenomenon and, as such, it refers to speakers' grammatical competence and cannot be reduced to agreement attraction of the plural intervener. |
Stefan L. Frank; Anna Aumeistere An eye-tracking-with-EEG coregistration corpus of narrative sentences Journal Article In: Language Resources and Evaluation, pp. 1–17, 2023. @article{Frank2023, We present the Radboud Coregistration Corpus of Narrative Sentences (RaCCooNS), the first freely available corpus of eye-tracking-with-EEG data collected while participants read narrative sentences in Dutch. The corpus is intended for studying human sentence comprehension and for evaluating the cognitive validity of computational language models. RaCCooNS contains data from 37 participants (3 of which eye tracking only) reading 200 Dutch sentences each. Less predictable words resulted in significantly longer reading times and larger N400 sizes, replicating well-known surprisal effects in eye tracking and EEG simultaneously. We release the raw eye-tracking data, the preprocessed eye-tracking data at the fixation, word, and trial levels, the raw EEG after merger with eye-tracking data, and the preprocessed EEG data both before and after ICA-based ocular artifact correction. |