Cauchi Christophe, Meeter Martijn
ATILF, CNRS & Universitéde Lorraine, France.
LEARN! Research Institute. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands.
J Cogn. 2025 Apr 28;8(1):35. doi: 10.5334/joc.446. eCollection 2025.
In adult readers, the perceptual span is approximately 14-15 characters to the right of the fixated word, corresponding to approximately 5° of visual angle. However, the extent of information processing within this area remains unclear. In the present study, we address this question using a novel adaptation of the flankers task in which the eccentricity of the flankers with respect to the central target word is increased. Fifty-four participants performed a lexical decision task on a central four-letter word flanked by two words of equal length. The flankers were either orthographically related (rock - rock) or unrelated (path - rock) to the target, and their eccentricity varied from 1.65° to 4.29° (center-to-center) in 0.33° steps. Participants' fixation was controlled by an eye-tracker using the fixation point as a trigger, and stimuli were displayed for 170 ms to avoid any eye movement. Results showed that the effect of unrelated flankers decreased with increasing eccentricity, while there was no effect of eccentricity of related flankers. In particular, the unrelated flankers affected central word processing up to the end of the parafovea. This observation provides evidence that the outer limits of the parafovea are engaged beyond prelexical processing. Lexical frequency influenced the magnitude of both reaction times (RTs) and accuracy rates, but did not interact with any variables. This novel adaptation of the flankers task has potential advantages for investigating the spatial integration of orthographic information across the perceptual span.
在成年读者中，注视点右侧的感知广度约为14 - 15个字符，相当于约5°的视角。然而，该区域内信息处理的范围仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们通过对侧翼任务进行新颖的调整来解决这个问题，即增加侧翼相对于中央目标词的离心率。54名参与者对一个由两个长度相等的单词侧翼的中央四个字母的单词执行词汇判断任务。侧翼与目标词在正字法上要么相关（rock - rock），要么不相关（path - rock），它们的离心率以0.33°的步长从1.65°变化到4.29°（中心到中心）。参与者的注视由眼动仪控制，以注视点作为触发，刺激显示170毫秒以避免任何眼动。结果表明，不相关侧翼的影响随着离心率的增加而减小，而相关侧翼的离心率没有影响。特别是，不相关侧翼对中央词处理的影响一直持续到副中央凹的末端。这一观察结果提供了证据，表明副中央凹的外部界限在词汇前处理之外也参与其中。词汇频率影响反应时间（RTs）和准确率的大小，但与任何变量均无相互作用。这种对侧翼任务的新颖调整在研究跨感知广度的正字法信息的空间整合方面具有潜在优势。
