Abstract
Few phenomena in reading research are as ubiquitous as the observation (both within and across paradigms) that high frequency words are easier to process than lower frequency ones. Jainta et al (2014) and Jainta et al (2017) report an exception in that, when reading sentences with only one eye, the word frequency advantage disappeared. If this same pattern were seen in single word reading it would strongly challenge all current theoretical accounts of reading aloud currently on the table. The present experiment therefore explored whether this same pattern is evident when participants read aloud single words under monocular (versus binocular) conditions. Bayesian analysis techniques reveal that, in contrast to the sentence reading results, a monocular condition does not modulate the word frequency effect when reading single words aloud. The present result thus point to a qualitative difference between word recognition processes seen in single word reading versus those seen in eye tracking studies.
Highlights
A robust finding in reading research is that common words are read faster and more accurately than less common ones
Jainta et al (2014) used a gaze contingent viewing paradigm, manipulating whether the target word in a sentence was viewed with only one or both eyes. They found that when English sentences were read with one eye, the processing benefit for high frequency words was eliminated in both gaze duration and fixation times (Jainta et al, 2014, jointly manipulated the preview reading conditions and the target reading conditions—preview benefits are not relevant to our study, so we focus only on the viewing conditions when reading the target words)
The evidence strongly favored the view that the word frequency effect was equivalent in both the monocular and binocular reading conditions
Summary
A robust finding in reading research is that common words are read faster and more accurately than less common ones. They report, in two eye-tracking studies, that the word frequency effect is eliminated (or reduced) when participants read sentences with only one eye (monocular reading). Such results are potentially problematic for all current theoretical accounts of reading at the single word level; the Jainta and colleagues results merit close attention in the context of such accounts. Jainta et al (2017) observed the same elimination of the frequency effect under monocular reading conditions for gaze duration and first fixation times in German. The total reading time measure continued to show a word frequency effect (one-tailed) under monocular conditions, but it was less than half the magnitude of the effect
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