Abstract
Effects of background speech on reading were examined by playing aloud different types of background speech, while participants read long, syntactically complex and less complex sentences embedded in text. Readers’ eye movement patterns were used to study online sentence comprehension. Effects of background speech were primarily seen in rereading time. In Experiment 1, foreign-language background speech did not disrupt sentence processing. Experiment 2 demonstrated robust disruption in reading as a result of semantically and syntactically anomalous scrambled background speech preserving normal sentence-like intonation. Scrambled speech that was constructed from the text to-be read did not disrupt reading more than scrambled speech constructed from a different, semantically unrelated text. Experiment 3 showed that scrambled speech exacerbated the syntactic complexity effect more than coherent background speech, which also interfered with reading. Experiment 4 demonstrated that both semantically and syntactically anomalous speech produced no more disruption in reading than semantically anomalous but syntactically correct background speech. The pattern of results is best explained by a semantic account that stresses the importance of similarity in semantic processing, but not similarity in semantic content, between the reading task and background speech.
Highlights
Reading is done in many different physical environments
More importantly for the present study, we found no evidence for the interference in reading by background speech
We only found a tendency for the non-native language background speech producing less first-pass fixation time than the other two background speech conditions
Summary
Reading is done in many different physical environments. It may be done during a quiet evening lying on a couch undisturbed by any external sources of visual or auditory information. The present study was designed to examine possible disruption effects by background speech on online text processing. Speech Effects on Sentence Processing during Reading: An Eye Movement Study. In Experiment 1, foreign-language background speech did not disrupt sentence processing. The study of Cauchard et al [2] is the only one investigating disruption effects on the online reading process They found overall slow-down in reading short text passages when it was performed in the presence of background speech (a radio talk show). Studies on the effects of background speech on the online reading process are largely lacking, there is rather extensive literature on disruption effects by background speech on language comprehension, measured after reading; for effects on proofreading, see [3,4,5].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
