Zhang Lei, Kang Liangyue, Chen Wanying, Xie Fang, Warrington Kayleigh L
Intelligent Laboratory of Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Crisis Intervention of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Normal University, Wucheng Distract, Jinhua 321004, China.
School of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Wucheng District, Jinhua 321004, China.
Brain Sci. 2024 May 18;14(5):512. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14050512.
The foveal load hypothesis assumes that the ease (or difficulty) of processing the currently fixated word in a sentence can influence processing of the upcoming word(s), such that parafoveal preview is reduced when foveal load is high. Recent investigations using pseudo-character previews reported an absence of foveal load effects in Chinese reading. Substantial Chinese studies to date provide some evidence to show that parafoveal words may be processed orthographically, phonologically, or semantically. However, it has not yet been established whether parafoveal processing is equivalent in terms of the type of parafoveal information extracted (orthographic, phonological, semantic) under different foveal load conditions. Accordingly, the present study investigated this issue with two experiments. Participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences in which foveal load was manipulated by placing a low- or high-frequency word N preceding a critical word. The preview validity of the upcoming word N + 1 was manipulated in Experiment 1, and word N + 2 in Experiment 2. The parafoveal preview was either identical to word N + 1(or word N + 2); orthographically related; phonologically related; semantically related; or an unrelated pseudo-character. The results showed robust main effects of frequency and preview type on both N + 1 and N + 2. Crucially, however, interactions between foveal load and preview type were absent, indicating that foveal load does not modulate the types of parafoveal information processed during Chinese reading.
中央凹负载假说认为，在句子中处理当前注视单词的难易程度会影响对后续单词的处理，以至于当中央凹负载较高时，副中央凹预视会减少。最近使用伪字符预视的研究报告称，中文阅读中不存在中央凹负载效应。迄今为止，大量中文研究提供了一些证据表明，副中央凹单词可能会在正字法、语音或语义层面上得到处理。然而，在不同的中央凹负载条件下，根据所提取的副中央凹信息类型（正字法、语音、语义），副中央凹处理是否等效尚未得到证实。因此，本研究通过两个实验对这一问题进行了探究。在参与者阅读句子时记录他们的眼动情况，其中通过在关键单词之前放置低频或高频单词N来操纵中央凹负载。在实验1中操纵即将出现的单词N + 1的预视有效性，在实验2中操纵单词N + 2的预视有效性。副中央凹预视与单词N + 1（或单词N + 2）相同；在正字法上相关；在语音上相关；在语义上相关；或者是一个不相关的伪字符。结果显示，频率和预视类型对N + 1和N + 2均有显著的主效应。然而，至关重要的是，中央凹负载和预视类型之间不存在交互作用，这表明中央凹负载不会调节中文阅读过程中所处理的副中央凹信息的类型。
