Processing In Chinese Reading Research Articles

Competition between parts and whole: A new approach to Chinese compound word processing.

How compound words are processed remains a central question in research on Chinese reading. The Chinese reading model assumes that all possible words sharing characters are activated during word processing and these activated words compete for a winner (Li & Pollatsek, 2020). The present studies aimed to examine whether embedded component words compete with whole compound words in Chinese reading. In Study 1, we analyzed two existing lexical decision databases and revealed inhibitory effects of component-word frequency and facilitative effects of character frequency on the first components. In Study 2, we conducted two factorial experiments to further examine the effects of first component-word frequency, with character frequencies controlled. The results consistently indicated significant inhibitory effects of component-word frequency. Collectively, these findings support the theoretical proposition that both component words and compound words are activated and engage in competition during word processing. This provides a new approach to compound word processing in Chinese reading and a possible solution to mixed results of character frequency effects reported in the literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of orthographic and phonological processing during reading Chinese sentences: Evidence from eye movements.

The role of phonological and orthographic processing and their time course during lexical processing and sentence reading remain controversial. By adopting a misspelled-characters disruption paradigm and eye-tracking technique, we manipulated the writing for the first characters of two-character target words to investigate the relative role of orthographic and phonological processing on word recognition in Chinese reading. There are four conditions: (a) correct character, (b) misspelled character with a stroke missing, (c) misspelled homographic character, and (d) misspelled homophonic character. The results showed that homophonic errors caused more disruptions than other conditions in the early (first-pass reading times) and later (total reading time) stages of lexical processing during Chinese reading. Homographic errors and omitted stroke errors lead to equal disruptions at the early stage of word recognition, but homographic errors cause more disruptions at the later stage. These results suggest that orthography plays a dominant role in word recognition during Chinese reading, whereas phonology plays a weaker and more limited role. The direct access and dual-rote hypothesis may well explain the mechanism of lexical processing in Chinese reading.

Food word processing in Chinese reading: A study of restrained eaters.

Food-related attentional bias refers that individuals typically prioritize rewarding food-related cues (e.g. food words and food images) compared with non-food stimuli; however, the findings are inconsistent for restrained eaters. Traditional paradigms used to test food-related attentional bias, such as visual probe tasks and visual search tasks, may not directly and accurately enough to reflect individuals' food-word processing at different cognitive stages. In this study, we introduced the boundary paradigm to investigate food-word attentional bias for both restrained and unrestrained eaters. Eye movements were recorded when they performed a naturalistic sentence-reading task. The results of later-stage analyses showed that food words were fixated on for less time than non-food words, which indicated a superiority of foveal food-word processing for both restrained and unrestrained eaters. The results of early-stage analyses showed that restrained eaters spent more time on pre-target regions in the food-word valid preview conditions, which indicated a parafoveal food-word processing superiority for restrained eaters (i.e. the parafoveal-on-foveal effect). The superiority of foveal food-word processing provides new insights into explaining food-related attentional bias in general groups. Additionally, the enhanced food-word attentional bias in parafoveal processing for restrained eaters illustrates the importance of individual characteristics in studying word recognition.

Exploring Relationships Between L2 Chinese Character Writing and Reading Acquisition From Embodied Cognitive Perspectives: Evidence From HSK Big Data.

Chinese characters are central to understanding how learners learn to read a logographic script. However, researchers know little about the role of character writing in reading Chinese as a second language (CSL). Unlike an alphabetic script, a Chinese character symbol transmits semantic information and is a cultural icon bridging embodied experience and text meaning. As a unique embodied practice, writing by hand contributes to cognitive processing in Chinese reading. Therefore, it is essential to clarify how Chinese character writing (bodily activity), language distance (past language usage), and cultural background (bodily coupling with the environment) influence CSL reading proficiency. Based on extant research on L2 reading acquisition and strength of key theoretical perspectives of embodied cognition theory (ECT), this study tested a regression model for CSL reading involving individual-level factors (Chinese character writing proficiency [CCWP]) and group-level predictors (language distance and cultural background). This study collected big data in a sample of 74,362 CSL learners with 67 diverse L1s. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed a significant effect of CCWP and significant language distance × CCWP interaction effect on reading proficiency; however, cultural background × CCWP interaction effect was not significant. These results conform to the ECT and indicate that bodily activity, past language usage, and cultural background aided reading. CCWP may benefit from withstanding the negative transfer from L1s. Furthermore, CCWP and cultural background are not synergistic predictors of reading. This study may open novel avenues for explorations of CSL reading development.

Deafness enhances perceptual span size in Chinese reading: Evidence from a gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm.

Using a gaze-contingent moving-window paradigm, we investigated whether/how deafness affects perceptual processing in Chinese reading. Besides the manipulation of window size, word length of sentences used in the experiment was also manipulated to check whether deafness enhanced the word length effect on perceptual span. Significant interactions of window constraints and deafness and a three-way interaction were observed on reading rate. Smaller effects of window constraints for deaf Chinese readers and nonreliable three-way interactions were observed on forward saccade length. This suggests that deaf Chinese readers exhibit a larger perceptual span, and word length affected the span from which information was acquired for comprehension whereas both deafness and word length might have little impact on the span from which information is acquired for oculomotor targeting during natural reading of Chinese.

Perceptual span is independent of font size for older and young readers: Evidence from Chinese.

Research suggests that visual acuity plays a more important role in parafoveal processing in Chinese reading than in spaced alphabetic languages, such that in Chinese, as the font size increases, the size of the perceptual span decreases. The lack of spaces and the complexity of written Chinese may make characters in eccentric positions particularly hard to process. Older adults generally have poorer visual capabilities than young adults, particularly in parafoveal vision, and so may find large characters in the parafovea particularly hard to process compared with smaller characters because of their greater eccentricity. Therefore, the effect of font size on the perceptual span may be larger for older readers. Crucially, this possibility has not previously been investigated; however, this may represent a unique source of age-related reading difficulty in logographic languages. Accordingly, to explore the relationship between font size and parafoveal processing for both older and young adult readers, we manipulated font size and the amount of parafoveal information available with different masking stimuli in 2 silent-reading experiments. The results show that decreasing the font size disrupted reading behavior more for older readers, such that reading times were longer for smaller characters, but crucially, the influence of font size on the perceptual span was absent for both age groups. These findings provide new insight into age-related reading difficulty in Chinese by revealing that older adults can successfully process substantial parafoveal information across a range of font sizes. This indicates that older adults' parafoveal processing may be more robust than previously considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Readers extract semantic information from parafoveal two-character synonyms in Chinese reading

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.

Predictability impacts word and character processing in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements

Predictability impacts word and character processing in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements

Flexible parafoveal encoding of character order supports word predictability effects in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements.

Several eye-movement studies have revealed flexibility in the parafoveal processing of character-order information in Chinese reading. In particular, studies show that processing a two-character word in a sentence benefits more from parafoveal preview of a nonword created by transposing rather than replacing its two characters. One issue that has not been investigated is whether the contextual predictability of the target word influences this processing of character order information. However, such a finding would provide novel evidence for an early influence of context on lexical processing in Chinese reading. Accordingly, we investigated this issue in an eye-movement experiment using the boundary paradigm and sentences containing two-character target words with high or low contextual predictability. Prior to the reader's gaze crossing an invisible boundary, each target word was shown normally (i.e. a valid preview) or with its two characters either transposed or replaced by unrelated characters to create invalid nonword previews. These invalid previews reverted to the target word once the reader's gaze crossed the invisible boundary. The results showed larger preview benefits (i.e. a decrease in fixation times) for target words following transposed-character than substituted-character previews, revealing a transposed-character effect similar to that in previous research. In addition, a word predictability effect (shorter fixation times for words with high than low predictability) was observed following both valid and transposed-character previews, but not substituted-character previews. The findings therefore reveal that context can influence an early stage of lexical processing in Chinese reading during which character order is processed flexibly.

Word predictability depends on parafoveal preview validity in Chinese reading

ABSTRACTResearch with alphabetic scripts shows that providing an invalid parafoveal preview eliminates or diminishes effects of contextual predictability on word identification, revealing that such effects depend on the interplay between top-down contextual expectations and bottom-up perceptual information. Whether similar effects are observed in character-based scripts like Chinese is unknown. However, such knowledge would extend our understanding of contextual prediction in different writing systems. Accordingly, we conducted an eye movement experiment using the boundary paradigm to assess contextual predictability effects on the processing of target words with valid and invalid parafoveal previews. Interactions between predictability and preview validity were observed in early reading times but not word-skipping for targets. This suggests an interplay between top-down and bottom-up processes drives contextual processing in Chinese reading, but that word-skipping is not strongly mediated by contextual expectations in this script. We consider these findings in relation to differences between alphabetic and non-alphabetic writing systems.

The Morphosyntactic Structure of Compound Words influences Parafoveal Processing in Chinese Reading.

In an eye movement experiment employing the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) we compared parafoveal preview benefit during the reading of Chinese sentences. The target word was a 2-character compound that had either a noun-noun or an adjective-noun structure each sharing an identical noun as the second character. The boundary was located between the two characters of the compound word. Prior to the eyes crossing the boundary the preview of the second character was presented either normally or was replaced by a pseudo-character. Previously, Juhasz, Inhoff and Rayner (2005) observed that inserting a space into a normally unspaced compound in English significantly disrupted processing and that this disruption was larger for adjective-noun compounds than for noun-noun compounds. This finding supports the hypothesis that, at least in English, for adjective-noun compounds, the noun is more important for lexical identification than the adjective, while for noun-noun compounds, both constituents are similar in importance for lexical identification. Our results indicate a similar division of the importance of compounds in reading in Chinese as the pseudo-character preview was more disruptive for the adjective-noun compounds than for the noun-noun compounds. These findings also indicate that parafoveal processing can be influenced by the morphosyntactic structure of the currently fixated character.

Does interword spacing influence lexical processing in Chinese reading?

ABSTRACTThis study investigated how inserting spaces between Chinese words affected word recognition in Chinese reading. Eye movements of Chinese readers were recorded in a sentence reading task where high- and low-frequency target words were presented in both the spaced and normally unspaced texts. We found that fixation durations on target words were shorter in the high- than low-frequency conditions, and shorter in the spaced than unspaced conditions. The survival analysis revealed that interword spacing advanced the temporal onset of word frequency effects relative to the normally unspaced condition. However, inconsistent with the findings in English reading, there was no interaction between word frequency and interword spacing on all fixation duration measures, and the Bayes factor analyses also favoured the hypothesis of null interaction. These data suggest that interword spacing facilitates visual rather than lexical processing in Chinese reading, and thus improves our understanding on the roles of interword spacing across different writing systems.

Character order processing in Chinese reading.

We explored how character order information is encoded in isolated word processing or Chinese sentence reading in 2 experiments using a masked priming paradigm and a gaze-contingent display-change paradigm. The results showed that response latencies in the lexical decision task and reading times on the target word region were longer in the unrelated condition (the prime or the preview was unrelated with the target word) than the transposed-character condition (the prime or the preview was a transposition of the 2 characters of the target word), which were respectively longer than in the identity condition (the prime or preview was identical to the target word). These results show that character order is encoded at an early stage of processing in Chinese reading, but character position encoding was not strict. We also found that character order encoding was similar for single-morpheme and multiple-morpheme words, suggesting that morphemic status does not affect character order encoding. The current results represent an early contribution to our understanding of character order encoding during Chinese reading.

The Preview of Word N+2 Influences the High Frequency Word N+1 Processing in Chinese Reading

本研究采用边界范式,控制单字词N＋1的预视加工负荷和词N＋2首字的预视信息类型,探讨了汉语阅读中词N＋2的预视对高频单字词N＋1加工产生的影响。结果发现,当词N＋1的预视为低加工负荷时,词N＋2首字的预视对词N＋1的加工产生了显著的影响;当词N＋2首字的预视字与词N＋1正字法相似,并且只呈现在副中央凹中时,显著的阻碍了词N＋1随后的加工。结果表明,副中央凹中词N＋2能够获得预视加工,可能获得正字法预视信息并对随后词N＋1的加工产生了影响,并且这种影响受词N＋1的预视加工负荷的调节。实验结果符合注意梯度指引模型的假设。

The advantage of word-based processing in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements.

In 2 experiments, we tested the prediction that reading is more efficient when characters belonging to a word are presented simultaneously than when they are not in Chinese reading using a novel variation of the moving window paradigm (McConkie & Rayner, 1975). In Experiment 1, we found that reading was slowed down when Chinese readers could not see characters belonging to a word simultaneously compared to when they could do so. In Experiment 2, when Chinese readers could choose whether the 2 characters in the moving window contained a word or 2 characters that did not constitute a word, they had a clear tendency to look at 2 characters belonging to a word simultaneously. The results of the current study provide strong evidence that character processing is affected by word knowledge and the processing of other characters belonging to the same word in Chinese reading, and add to a growing body of evidence demonstrating that words do have psychological reality for Chinese readers. The results also suggest that the eye movement control strategy of Chinese readers is rather flexible in that it can be adjusted online to modify the characteristics of the window.

Focus, Newness and Their Combination: Processing of Information Structure in Discourse

The relationship between focus and new information has been unclear despite being the subject of several information structure studies. Here, we report an eye-tracking experiment that explored the relationship between them in on-line discourse processing in Chinese reading. Focus was marked by the Chinese focus-particle “shi", which is equivalent to the cleft structure “it was… who…" in English. New information was defined as the target word that was not present in previous contexts. Our results show that, in the target region, focused information was processed more quickly than non-focused information, while new information was processed more slowly than given information. These results reveal differences in processing patterns between focus and newness, and suggest that they are different concepts that relate to different aspects of cognitive processing. In addition, the effect of new/given information occurred in the post-target region for the focus condition, but not for the non-focus condition, suggesting a complex relationship between focus and newness in the discourse integration stage.