North Hospital, Marseille, France.
Mantu Lab, Amaris Research Unit, Sophia Antipolis, France.
Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 11;10(1):21792. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-78420-0.
For normally sighted readers, word neighborhood size (i.e., the total number of words that can be formed from a single word by changing only one letter) has a facilitator effect on word recognition. When reading with central field loss (CFL) however, individual letters may not be correctly identified, leading to possible misidentifications and a reverse neighborhood size effect. Here we investigate this inhibitory effect of word neighborhood size on reading performance and whether it is modulated by word predictability and reading proficiency. Nineteen patients with binocular CFL from 32 to 89 years old (mean ± SD = 75 ± 15) read short sentences presented with the self-paced reading paradigm. Accuracy and reading time were measured for each target word read, along with its predictability, i.e., its probability of occurrence following the two preceding words in the sentence using a trigram analysis. Linear mixed effects models were then fit to estimate the individual contributions of word neighborhood size, predictability, frequency and length on accuracy and reading time, while taking patients' reading proficiency into account. For the less proficient readers, who have given up daily reading as a consequence of their visual impairment, we found that the effect of neighborhood size was reversed compared to normally sighted readers and of higher amplitude than the effect of frequency. Furthermore, this inhibitory effect is of greater amplitude (up to 50% decrease in reading speed) when a word is not easily predictable because its chances to occur after the two preceding words in a specific sentence are rather low. Severely impaired patients with CFL often quit reading on a daily basis because this task becomes simply too exhausting. Based on our results, we envision lexical text simplification as a new alternative to promote effective rehabilitation in these patients. By increasing reading accessibility for those who struggle the most, text simplification might be used as an efficient rehabilitation tool and daily reading assistive technology, fostering overall reading ability and fluency through increased practice.
对于正常视力的读者来说，单词邻域大小（即通过仅更改一个字母可以从单个单词形成的总单词数）对单词识别有促进作用。然而，当患有中央视野缺损（CFL）时，单个字母可能无法正确识别，从而导致可能的错误识别和反向邻域大小效应。在这里，我们研究了单词邻域大小对阅读表现的这种抑制作用，以及它是否受到单词可预测性和阅读熟练度的调节。19 名年龄在 32 至 89 岁（平均值±标准差=75±15）的双眼 CFL 患者使用自我调节阅读范式阅读短句子。为每个目标单词读取测量准确性和阅读时间，以及其可预测性，即使用三字母分析计算其在句子中前两个单词之后出现的概率。然后，线性混合效应模型被拟合以估计单词邻域大小、可预测性、频率和长度对准确性和阅读时间的个体贡献，同时考虑患者的阅读熟练度。对于那些由于视力障碍而放弃日常阅读的不太熟练的读者，我们发现与正常视力的读者相比，邻域大小的影响发生了反转，并且比频率的影响幅度更大。此外，当一个单词不容易预测时，这种抑制效应的幅度更大（阅读速度降低高达 50%），因为它在特定句子中前两个单词之后出现的可能性较低。患有 CFL 的严重受损患者通常每天都会放弃阅读，因为这项任务太累人了。基于我们的结果，我们设想词汇文本简化作为促进这些患者有效康复的新选择。通过增加那些最困难的人的阅读可及性，文本简化可以作为一种有效的康复工具和日常阅读辅助技术，通过增加练习来提高整体阅读能力和流畅度。
