Readers extract semantic information from parafoveal two-character synonyms in Chinese reading
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Readers extract semantic information from parafoveal two‑character synonyms in Chinese reading Mengyan Zhu1 · Xiangling Zhuang1 · Guojie Ma1 Accepted: 1 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract In Chinese reading, the possibility and mechanism of semantic parafoveal processing has been debated for a long time. To advance the topic, “semantic preview benefit” in Chinese reading was reexamined, with a specific focus on how it is affected by the semantic relatedness between preview and target words at the two-character word level. Eighty critical two-character words were selected as target words. Reading tasks with gaze-contingent boundary paradigms were used to study whether different semantic-relatedness preview conditions influenced parafoveal processing. The data showed that synonyms (the most closely related preview) produced significant preview benefit compared with the semantic-related (non-synonyms) condition, even when plausibility was controlled. This result indicates that the larger extent of semantic preview benefit is mainly caused by the larger semantic relatedness between preview and target words. Moreover, plausibility is not the only cause of semantic preview benefit in Chinese reading. These findings improve the current understanding of the mechanism of parafoveal processing in Chinese reading and the implications on modeling eye movement control are discussed. Keywords Chinese reading · Eye movements · Semantic preview benefit · Semantic relatedness
Introduction Whether readers can extract high-level information from the parafovea remains debated (Rayner, 1998, 2009; Schotter, Angele, & Rayner, 2012). Preview benefit plays a critical role in answering the above question. It refers to the faster processing * Xiangling Zhuang [email protected] * Guojie Ma [email protected] 1
Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang’an Road, Xi’an 710062, China
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of a target word (indicated by shorter fixation duration) when the preview is related to the target word, compared with when it is unrelated (Rayner, McConkie, & Ehrlich, 1978). If fixation durations on target words are shorter because of the semantic relatedness between preview and target words, the effect is called semantic preview benefit. The present study reexamined whether semantic preview benefit exists in Chinese reading, and more importantly, explored the role of semantic relatedness in the causes of the phenomenon. Semantic preview benefit in Chinese reading was initially reported by Yan, Richter, Shu, and Kliegl (2009). In their study, the first character of a two-character word was manipulated on the character level to orthographical-, phonological-, and semantic-related conditions. The results showed that Chinese readers could reliably extract semantic information from such manipulated simple characters, presented to the parafovea. In a following study, Yan, Zhou, Shu, and Kliegl (2012) further ex
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