Abstract
Two experiments are reported to investigate whether Chinese readers skip a high-frequency preview word without taking the syntax of the sentence context into account. In Experiment 1, we manipulated target word syntactic category, frequency, and preview using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). For high-frequency verb targets, there were identity and pseudocharacter previews alongside a low-frequency noun preview. For low-frequency verb targets, there were identity and pseudocharacter previews alongside a high-frequency noun preview. Results showed that for high-frequency targets, skipping rates were higher for identical previews compared with the syntactically infelicitous alternative low-frequency preview and pseudocharacter previews, however for low-frequency targets, skipping rates were higher for high-frequency previews (even when they were syntactically infelicitous) compared with the other 2 previews. Furthermore, readers were more likely to skip the target when they had a high-frequency, syntactically felicitous preview compared to a high-frequency, syntactically infelicitous preview. The pattern of felicity effects was statistically robust when readers launched saccades from near the target. In Experiment 2, we assessed whether display change awareness influenced the patterns of results in Experiment 1. Results showed that the overall patterns held in Experiment 2 regardless of some readers being more likely to be aware of the display change than others. These results suggest that decisions to skip a word in Chinese reading are primarily based on parafoveal word familiarity, though the syntactic felicity of a parafoveal word also exerts a robust influence for high-frequency previews.
Highlights
Two experiments are reported to investigate whether Chinese readers skip a high-frequency preview word without taking the syntax of the sentence context into account
The patterns obtained for all the target word skipping data and those data for saccades launched from a near position are very clear: For the high-frequency target, the probability of skipping the target was higher for the identical preview compared with the syntactically infelicitous alternative lower frequency preview, and there was no difference between the syntactically infelicitous alternative lower frequency preview and the pseudocharacter preview
The probability of skipping the lowfrequency target was higher for the syntactically infelicitous alternative higher frequency preview compared with the identical preview and the pseudocharacter preview
Summary
Two experiments are reported to investigate whether Chinese readers skip a high-frequency preview word without taking the syntax of the sentence context into account. Results showed that the overall patterns held in Experiment 2 regardless of some readers being more likely to be aware of the display change than others. These results suggest that decisions to skip a word in Chinese reading are primarily based on parafoveal word familiarity, though the syntactic felicity of a parafoveal word exerts a robust influence for high-frequency previews. To what extent, readers use parafoveal and contextual information in making skipping decisions during Chinese reading, are not well understood. These will be our focus in our experiments.
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
