Chang Min, Hao Lisha, Zhao Sainan, Li Lin, Paterson Kevin B, Wang Jingxin
Academy of Psychology and Behaviour, Tianjin Normal University, Hexi District, Tianjin, 300374, China.
Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Aug;82(6):2793-2801. doi: 10.3758/s13414-020-02050-x.
Several eye-movement studies have revealed flexibility in the parafoveal processing of character-order information in Chinese reading. In particular, studies show that processing a two-character word in a sentence benefits more from parafoveal preview of a nonword created by transposing rather than replacing its two characters. One issue that has not been investigated is whether the contextual predictability of the target word influences this processing of character order information. However, such a finding would provide novel evidence for an early influence of context on lexical processing in Chinese reading. Accordingly, we investigated this issue in an eye-movement experiment using the boundary paradigm and sentences containing two-character target words with high or low contextual predictability. Prior to the reader's gaze crossing an invisible boundary, each target word was shown normally (i.e. a valid preview) or with its two characters either transposed or replaced by unrelated characters to create invalid nonword previews. These invalid previews reverted to the target word once the reader's gaze crossed the invisible boundary. The results showed larger preview benefits (i.e. a decrease in fixation times) for target words following transposed-character than substituted-character previews, revealing a transposed-character effect similar to that in previous research. In addition, a word predictability effect (shorter fixation times for words with high than low predictability) was observed following both valid and transposed-character previews, but not substituted-character previews. The findings therefore reveal that context can influence an early stage of lexical processing in Chinese reading during which character order is processed flexibly.
多项眼动研究揭示了中文阅读中副中央凹对字符顺序信息处理的灵活性。具体而言，研究表明，在句子中处理双字词语时，由两个字符换位而非替换所形成的非字词的副中央凹预视能带来更多益处。一个尚未被研究的问题是目标词的语境可预测性是否会影响这种字符顺序信息的处理。然而，这样的发现将为语境对中文阅读中词汇处理的早期影响提供新的证据。因此，我们在一项眼动实验中使用边界范式以及包含语境可预测性高或低的双字目标词的句子来研究这个问题。在读者的注视越过一条不可见的边界之前，每个目标词正常显示（即有效预视），或者其两个字符被换位或被不相关的字符替换以创建无效的非字词预视。一旦读者的注视越过这条不可见的边界，这些无效预视就会变回目标词。结果显示，对于换位字符预视后的目标词，预视益处更大（即注视时间减少），这比替换字符预视显示出了与先前研究类似的换位字符效应。此外，在有效预视和换位字符预视之后都观察到了词可预测性效应（可预测性高的词比可预测性低的词注视时间更短），但在替换字符预视之后未观察到。因此，这些发现揭示了语境可以影响中文阅读中词汇处理的早期阶段，在此阶段字符顺序得到灵活处理。
