Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2014 Jan;40(1):166-90. doi: 10.1037/a0033670. Epub 2013 Jul 29.
Word features in parafoveal vision influence eye movements during reading. The question of whether readers extract semantic information from parafoveal words was studied in 3 experiments by using a gaze-contingent display change technique. Subjects read German sentences containing 1 of several preview words that were replaced by a target word during the saccade to the preview (boundary paradigm). In the 1st experiment the preview word was semantically related or unrelated to the target. Fixation durations on the target were shorter for semantically related than unrelated previews, consistent with a semantic preview benefit. In the 2nd experiment, half the sentences were presented following the rules of German spelling (i.e., previews and targets were printed with an initial capital letter), and the other half were presented completely in lowercase. A semantic preview benefit was obtained under both conditions. In the 3rd experiment, we introduced 2 further preview conditions, an identical word and a pronounceable nonword, while also manipulating the text contrast. Whereas the contrast had negligible effects, fixation durations on the target were reliably different for all 4 types of preview. Semantic preview benefits were greater for pretarget fixations closer to the boundary (large preview space) and, although not as consistently, for long pretarget fixation durations (long preview time). The results constrain theoretical proposals about eye movement control in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
视副区文字特征影响阅读时的眼球运动。本研究通过使用眼动追踪技术，以注视相关的显示变化范式，探讨了读者是否能从视副区文字中提取语义信息。被试阅读包含 1 个预览词的德语文本，在眼跳过程中预览词被目标词取代（边界范式）。在实验 1 中，预览词与目标词在语义上相关或不相关。与不相关的预览词相比，语义相关的预览词能让被试在目标词上的注视时间更短，这与语义预览优势一致。在实验 2 中，一半的句子遵循德语拼写规则（即，预览词和目标词都用大写字母打印），另一半完全用小写字母呈现。在这两种条件下都获得了语义预览优势。在实验 3 中，我们引入了另外两种预览条件，即相同的词和可发音的非词，同时还操纵了文本对比度。虽然对比度的影响可以忽略不计，但对于所有 4 种预览类型，目标的注视时间都有明显的差异。对于靠近边界（大预览空间）的目标前注视，语义预览优势更大，虽然不是始终如此，但对于长目标前注视持续时间（长预览时间），也是如此。这些结果限制了关于阅读中眼球运动控制的理论假设。
