Abstract
In alphabetic writing systems (such as English), the spaces between words mark the word boundaries, and the basic unit of reading is distinguished during visual-level processing. The visual-level information of word boundaries facilitates reading. Chinese is an ideographic language whose text contains no intrinsic inter-word spaces as the marker of word boundaries. Previous studies have shown that the basic processing unit of Chinese reading is also a word. However, findings remain inconsistent regarding whether inserting spaces between words in Chinese text promotes reading performance. Researchers have proposed that there may be a trade-off between format familiarity and the facilitation effect of inter-word spaces. In order to verify this, this study manipulated the format familiarity via reversing the Chinese reading direction from right to left to investigate this issue in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to examine whether inter-word spaces facilitated Chinese reading in an unfamiliar format. Experiment 1 was conducted that 40 native Chinese undergraduates read Chinese sentences from right to left on four format conditions. The results showed faster reading speed and shorter total reading time for the inter-word spaced format. Based on this finding, Experiment 2 examined whether the facilitation effect of inter-word spaces would reduce or disappear after improving the format familiarity; this experiment was conducted that 40 native Chinese undergraduates who did not participate in Experiment 1 read Chinese sentences from right to left on four format conditions after ten-day reading training. There was no significant difference between the total reading time and reading speed in the inter-word spaced format and unspaced format, which suggests that the facilitation effect of inter-word spaces in Chinese reading changed smaller. The combined results of the two experiments suggest that there is indeed a trade-off between format familiarity and the facilitation of word segmentation, which supports the assumption of previous studies.
Highlights
As the saying goes, “Read wide, and you will wisely write.” In other words, reading is the basic way for humans to acquire information, as well as an effective way to inherit human knowledge and civilization
This poses the following questions: when reading texts with an unfamiliar format which differs from the default format, how do readers understand and process the information given in the unfamiliar format? Does reading performance change under unfamiliar format? Are there any differences between reading processing in the unfamiliar format and the familiar format? These questions need to be explored in psychology of reading
The results showing the total reading time was shorter and the reading speed was faster in the inter-word spaced format compared to the unspaced format supported the assumption that there was a trade-off between format unfamiliarity and the facilitation effect of interword spaces in Chinese reading
Summary
“Read wide, and you will wisely write.” In other words, reading is the basic way for humans to acquire information, as well as an effective way to inherit human knowledge and civilization. Chinese is an ideographic language that differs from an alphabetic language like English, whose texts contain intrinsic inter-word spaces as word boundary markers. The reading direction is one of the significant characteristics among languages In some languages, such as Hebrew and Arabic, text by default is read from right to left (Deutsch and Rayner, 1999). The direction of modern Chinese texts has changed to a left to right direction, which is a familiar reading format for native Chinese readers. This poses the following questions: when reading texts with an unfamiliar format which differs from the default format (for example, Arabic readers whose default format is reading from right to left in arabic texts read Chinese texts from left to right in unfamiliar format), how do readers understand and process the information given in the unfamiliar format? This poses the following questions: when reading texts with an unfamiliar format which differs from the default format (for example, Arabic readers whose default format is reading from right to left in arabic texts read Chinese texts from left to right in unfamiliar format), how do readers understand and process the information given in the unfamiliar format? Does reading performance change under unfamiliar format? Are there any differences between reading processing in the unfamiliar format and the familiar format? These questions need to be explored in psychology of reading
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