Sentence Reading Research Articles

The relationship between lead levels and reading acquisition in Spanish speakers, evidence from Uruguayan schoolers.

To investigate the cross-sectional association between blood lead levels (BLL), and pre-reading and reading abilities in first-grade children from Montevideo, Uruguay. Of 357 school children (age 67-105 months) enrolled into the study, 287(43 % girls) had a BLL measure and an assessment of pre-reading and reading abilities based on five tests (Verbal comprehension, Sound blending, Letter word identification, Sentence reading fluency, and Passage comprehension) from the Batería III Woodcock-Muñoz. Separate generalized linear models (GLM) were conducted on the relationship between BLL and each test score separately, adjusting for sex, maternal education, household assets, Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory score, season, test administrator, blood lead testing method, and school clusters. The mean BLL was 4.0 ± 2.2 µg/dL, with no differences between the sexes. BLL was associated with a poorer vocabulary knowledge (β [95 % CI]): -0.20 [-0.39, 0.01]. For all the tests, children with BLLs ≥5 µg/dL tended to exhibit poorer performance than children with lower BLLs, but these associations were not statistically significant. When stratified by sex, some evidence of differential associations between BLLs and reading abilities emerged: BLLs were associated with higher phonological awareness in girls (0.32 [0.15, 0.48]) but not boys, and with lower reading comprehension in boys (-0.54 [-1.20, 0.13]) but not girls. Also, lead exposure (BLL ≥ 5 µg/dL) was more strongly and negatively associated with phonological awareness (-1.22 [-1.57, -0.86]) in boys than girls. In this study of first-grade children learning to read in Spanish, we found an inverse association between lead exposure and vocabulary scores, as well as tendency toward lower performance on pre-reading and reading measures among children with BLLs ≥5 µg/dL. Pre-reading and reading abilities are relevant to literacy acquisition; further research is required to confirm these links in larger studies, and to investigate differences between boys and girls, and according to key sociodemographic characteristics.

Validation of the European French Version of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-Vf)

ObjectiveThis study aimed to validate the French adaptation of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-Vf) for assessing voice disorders in France. The CAPE-Vf addresses limitations of the GRBAS by providing a more sensitive, standardized approach to evaluating six vocal parameters (overall severity, roughness, breathiness, strain, pitch, and loudness) on three tasks (sustained vowels, sentence reading, and spontaneous speech). The study focused on investigating the intra- and inter-rater reliability, as well as the convergent and discriminant validity of the CAPE-Vf. MethodsThirty-four dysphonic and seven euphonic native French speakers participated in the study. Thirteen speech-language pathologists from France evaluated the voice samples using both the CAPE-Vf and GRBAS tools at a one-week interval. Intra- and inter-rater reliability were calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), while convergent and discriminant validity were measured by correlating CAPE-Vf with GRBAS and Voice Handicap Index (VHI) scores, respectively. ResultsThe CAPE-Vf showed good intra-rater reliability for overall severity (mean ICC: 0.89), strain (ICC: 0.83), and pitch (ICC: 0.88), while roughness, breathiness, and loudness exhibited moderate reliability. Inter-rater reliability was low for most parameters, except overall severity, which demonstrated good reliability (mean ICC: 0.77). Strong correlations were observed between CAPE-Vf and GRBAS Grade (mean r: 0.84), supporting its convergent validity. Moderate correlations were found for roughness, breathiness, and strain. The CAPE-Vf’s correlation with the VHI was moderate (mean r: 0.53), reflecting its discriminant validity. ConclusionThe CAPE-Vf is a valid and reliable tool for perceptual assessment of voice disorders in French-speaking populations, with stronger psychometric properties than the GRBAS, particularly for intra-rater reliability and overall severity. While inter-rater reliability was lower, qualitative feedback suggested that improvements to the protocol, particularly for pitch and loudness ratings, could enhance its clinical applicability. The findings support the CAPE-Vf as a comprehensive tool for standardized clinical voice assessment.

Aptitude, Anxiety, and Success in L2 Speech Development: A Longitudinal Study of Chinese EFL College-Level Learners.

This study examined the second language (L2) speech development of a group of Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) college-level learners (N = 83) and the association between their aptitude, anxiety, and L2 speech development. The performance of the participants' L2 speech, including speech comprehensibility and accentedness, was evaluated using a sentence reading task and a pair of picture description tasks (pre- and post-test). In addition, students completed the LLAMA tests (language learning and aptitude measurement in adults) and the Second Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (SLSAS). The t-test revealed that after one semester of English speaking and pronunciation instruction, the EFL students in the study demonstrated significant gains in their L2 speech performance in terms of accentedness and comprehensibility in both controlled and impromptu tasks. Regression analyses revealed that phonemic coding ability positively predicted gains in comprehensibility but negatively predicted gains in accentedness during sentence reading. In addition, associative memory was positively associated with comprehensibility gains in the picture description task. Anxiety appeared to be a strong predictor of participants' gains in speech comprehensibility and accentedness during the picture description task.

Exploring the flexibility of word position encoding in Chinese reading: the role of transposition effects

ABSTRACT Previous research in the alphabetic writing system has demonstrated that transposition distance (adjacent vs. non-adjacent) modulates word position encoding during sentence reading. To examine the generality of this pattern within a more holistic model of sentence processing, we investigated this effect in the logographic Chinese writing system. We manipulated the number of words intervening between the transposed words, creating four conditions: none, one, two, and three intervening words. Participants performed a rapid grammaticality judgment task. Results showed longer response latencies and higher error rates when words were transposed adjacent to each other compared to non-adjacent transpositions. Furthermore, more errors and longer response times were observed when one word intervened between the transposed words compared to two or three intervening words. However, no significant differences emerged between the two- and three-word interval conditions. These findings suggest that word position encoding exhibits graded, flexible tolerance to transposition distance, constrained by proximity.

Does word boundary information facilitate Chinese sentence reading in children as beginning readers?

BackgroundPrevious studies showed inconsistent results on whether providing word boundary information using spaces or alternating colors across words would facilitate children's Chinese reading performance. AimsWe speculated that this inconsistency was related to individual difference in the ability to adjust visual routines for reading established through prior experience in response to the word boundary information. We hypothesized that (1) children who had greater ability to change eye movement behavior according to the word boundary manipulation would benefit more in reading performance; (2) using spaces as word boundaries changed the global configuration of original sentences, which may require more adjustment from the established visual routine, leading to less facilitation. SamplesSixty-three grade 2–3 primary school children. MethodsChildren read regular Chinese sentences and sentences with either spaces or alternating colors as word boundary markers and answered related comprehension questions with eye tracking. ResultsEye Movement analysis with Hidden Markov Models (EMHMM) revealed two representative gaze transition patterns through clustering: a more sequential and a less sequential pattern. As compared with regular sentences, when using alternating colors as word boundary markers, a larger gaze transition pattern change towards the more sequential pattern was correlated with a larger increase in comprehension accuracy. This effect was not observed when using spaces as word boundary markers. ConclusionsAn instructional design should consider its potential costs on the cognitive processes established during prior learning, as well as the potential individual differences in the ability to adjust the existing processing strategy according to the new instructions.

Oral reading promotes predictive processing in Chinese sentence reading: eye movement evidence.

Fluent sentence reading is widely acknowledged to depend on top-down contextual prediction, wherein sentential and contextual cues guide the pre-activation of linguistic representations before encountering stimuli, facilitating subsequent comprehension. The Prediction-by-Production hypothesis posits an explanation for predictive processes in language comprehension, suggesting that prediction during comprehension involves processes associated with language production. However, there is a lack of eye movement evidence supporting this hypothesis within sentence reading contexts. Thus, we manipulated reading mode and word predictability to examine the influence of language production on predictive processing. Participants engaged in silent or oral reading of sentences containing either high or low-predictable target words. Eye movements were recorded using the Eyelink1000 eye tracker. The findings revealed a higher skipping rate and shorter fixation times for high-predictable words compared to low-predictable ones, and for silent compared to oral reading. Notably, interactive effects were observed in the time measures (FFD, SFD, GD) during first-pass reading, indicating that word predictability effects were more pronounced during oral reading than silent reading. The observed pattern of results suggests that the activation of the production system enhances predictive processing during the early lexical access, providing empirical support for the Prediction-by-Production hypothesis in eye movement sentence reading situations, extending the current understanding of the timing and nature of predictions in reading comprehension.

Perceptual representations in L1 and L2 spatial and abstract language processing: applying an innovative sentence-diagram verification paradigm.

Perceptual representations in language comprehension were examined using sentence-picture verification tasks. However, concerns have been raised regarding the suitability of concrete pictures for representing abstract concepts compared to image-schematic diagrams. To assess the perceptual representations of spatial and abstract domains in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) processing, the study tests bilingual speakers' mental imagery on the basis of the simulation-based L1 comprehension model and proposes a simulation-based L2 comprehension model, supported by empirical evidence from an innovative sentence-diagram verification paradigm. 41 adult L1 Mandarin Chinese speakers participated in the study. 21 participants completed the Chinese sentence-diagram verification task (Experiment 1), while 20 participants completed the translation-equivalent version in L2 English (Experiment 2). Participants read a sentence [e.g., A diligent worker walked into the office (spatial sense); A strong team headed into the final (abstract sense)] at their self-paced speed, followed by a congruent (e.g., into diagram) or incongruent diagram (e.g., out-of diagram), and made binary judgments to verify spatial configurations between the sentence and diagram. Semantic rating tasks in both Chinese and English were also conducted to validate congruency between diagrams and sentences in both languages. Results from Experiment 1 indicate overall compatibility effects on L1 Chinese processing, unaffected by directional verbs or abstractness of sense. Results from Experiment 2 reveal interference effects on L2 English processing, with interference observed only after reading sentences encoding spatial senses, not abstract senses. Aligning with previous findings using sentence-picture verification tasks, the current findings confirm the weaker mental simulation effects in L2 processing compared to L1 processing. These findings extend the existing simulation-based L1 comprehension model, provide empirical support for the proposed simulation-based L2 comprehension model, and validate the innovative sentence-diagram verification paradigm for examining image-schematic representations in spatial and abstract language processing among Chinese-English bilinguals. The paradigm holds significant potential for research on perceptual representations in processing a broader range of grammatical and semantic properties during both online and offline L1 and L2 comprehension.

Weathering words: a virtual reality study of environmental influence on reading dynamics.

Reading is a fundamental cognitive activity that is influenced by both textual and external environmental factors, although the latter has been less thoroughly explored. This study aims to examine the impact of environmental visual conditions on reading performance using Virtual Reality (VR) technology. We conducted two experiments to assess the effects of visual contrast and simulated weather conditions on reading dynamics. In Experiment 1, we measured single-word recognition speed using a lexical decision task under different visual contrasts and weather conditions. In Experiment 2, we assessed reading dynamics during a sentence reading task, analyzing how visual contrast and simulated sunny versus rainy weather conditions affected reading behavior, particularly focusing on reading speed and eye fixations. In Experiment 1, high visual contrast, particularly under sunny conditions, significantly enhanced single-word recognition speed, indicating a notable influence of environmental visual conditions. In Experiment 2, visual contrast had minimal effect on sentence reading; however, sunny weather facilitated faster reading times, while rainy scenarios increased the number of eye fixations. These findings suggest that environmental factors, such as weather conditions, can significantly affect reading behavior. The study contributes to the understanding of key environmental influences on reading in everyday life contexts and has implications for the ergonomic design of reading materials, especially for outdoor settings and VR environments. Additionally, the integration of controlled stimuli within VR increases the ecological validity of reading research, underscoring the potential of VR as a powerful tool for cognitive research.

Straight enough: Deriving imprecise interpretations of maximum standard absolute adjectives

While maximum standard absolute adjectives (such as straight) typically have a precise meaning (e.g., ‘perfectly straight’), they are also regularly used imprecisely (e.g., to mean ‘straight enough’). The current study investigates how contextual expectations of precision and a visual referent’s conceptual distance from an ideal maximum standard influence the processing effort of precise and imprecise interpretations of these adjectives. In three experiments, we showed native speakers of English images depicting objects that could be referred to precisely or imprecisely via an absolute adjective and asked them to select the image that best matched the written sentence (Experiments 1 and 2) or to read sentences containing maximum standard absolute adjectives (Experiment 3). Experiment 1 presented no discourse context, and participants accepted, on average, only a small degree of imprecision; and when they did, they took longer, relative to cases in which the same adjectives were used precisely, which is in line with existing empirical findings. Experiment 2 contrasted two kinds of discourse contexts (raising high or low expectations of precision) before the presentation of the test sentences. When expectations of precision were high, participants tolerated only a small degree of imprecision, and when they did, it came at a cost, as in Experiment 1. When expectations of precision were low, much larger degrees of imprecision were tolerated but, critically, participants were still, overall, faster to reach precise, relative to imprecise, interpretations in supporting contexts, suggesting that accessing the precise meaning is less effortful. Experiment 3 supported these findings by showing how the cost of understanding imprecision is also present in a self-paced reading task. Our results lend support to the view that maximum standards are part of the encoded meaning of these adjectives.

The effects of prediction representations on implicit learning: Evidence from sentence reading and perceptual identification

Predicting errors can facilitate implicit learning, but the long-term consequences of prediction errors are not yet fully understood. Especially when predictions are disconfirmed, it remains unclear whether initially correct prediction representations persist or are suppressed. In this study, participants first engaged in a sentence reading task and then performed a perceptual identification task after completing an N-back task or after a 24-h delay. The perceptual identification task presented previously expected and unexpected words and previously predicted but not presented words to measure implicit memory for the critical items. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms underlying the persistence of prediction representations and the long-term effects of prediction errors on implicit learning. Our results indicate that prediction errors can promote implicit learning and can persist for more than 24 h. Furthermore, originally correct but not seen in reality prediction representations persist to facilitate performance on the implicit memory task after 24 h. This may reflect long-term changes in the internal representation probabilities of prediction representations.

Word length and frequency effects in natural Chinese reading: Evidence for character representations in lexical identification.

Word length and frequency are two of the "big three" factors that affect eye movements in natural reading. Although these factors have been extensively investigated, all previous studies manipulating word length have been confounded with changes in visual complexity (longer words have more letters and are more visually complex). We controlled stroke complexity across one-character (short) and two-character (long) high- and low-frequency Chinese words (to avoid complexity confounds) and recorded readers' eye movements during sentence reading. Both word length and frequency yielded strong main effects for fixation time measures. For saccadic targeting and skipping probability, word length effects, but not word frequency effects, occurred. Critically, the interaction was not significant regardless of stroke complexity, indicating that word length and frequency independently influence lexical identification and saccade target selection during Chinese reading. The results provide evidence for character-level representations during Chinese word recognition in natural reading.

Pulsed lighting for adults with Dyslexia: very limited impact, confined to individuals with severe reading deficits

The goal of this study is to evaluate the impact of pulsed lighting on the reading performance of young adults with dyslexia. A total of 42 participants were recruited, including individuals diagnosed with developmental dyslexia and adults without reported reading difficulties. The severity of each participant’s reading deficit was assessed on a continuous scale using a reading impairment score, derived from four reading tests: an isolated-word reading test, a pseudoword reading test, and two reading fluency tests. The impairment score ranged from 0 (no impairment) to 4 (severe impairment across all tests). To examine the potential effect of pulsed lighting, we measured (1) sentence reading speed, expressed as a reading accessibility index (ACC), and (2) text comprehension, expressed as a comprehension score. These measures were taken under three lighting conditions: standard lighting, pulsed lighting, and a combination of the two. Linear mixed-effects models were applied to assess the effects of lighting on ACC and comprehension, controlling for the reading impairment score. We found no effect of lighting conditions on either ACC or comprehension, except in the most impaired readers, who showed a small but significant increase of 7% in ACC. However, even with pulsed lighting, impaired readers did not reach the performance level of skilled adult readers. In conclusion, the study did not demonstrate a clear positive impact of pulsed lighting on the reading skills of adults with dyslexia.

Normalization of timed measures in bilingualism research

Abstract The time it takes an individual to respond to a probe (e.g., a word, picture, or question) or to read a word or phrase provides useful insights into cognitive processes. Consequently, timed measures are a staple in bilingualism research. However, timed measures usually violate assumptions of linear models, one being normal distribution of the residuals. Power transformations are a common solution but which of the many possible transformations to apply is often guesswork. Box and Cox (1964) developed a procedure to estimate the best-fitting normalizing transformation, coefficient lambda (λ), that is easy to run using standard R packages. This practical primer demonstrates how to perform the Box-Cox transformation in R using as a testbed the distractor items from a recent eye-tracking study on sentence reading in speakers of Spanish as a majority and a heritage language. The analyses show (a) that the exponents selected via the Box-Cox procedure reduce positive skewness as well as or better than the natural log; (b) that the best-fitting value of λ varies based on factors such as group and, in the case of eye-movement data, the measure of interest; and (c) that the choice of transformation sometimes impacts p values for model estimates.

The Role of Morphological Awareness and Orthographic Awareness in Reading Comprehension in Arabic: Do Reading Fluency and Working Memory Count?

This study examined the independent contribution of morphological awareness and orthographic awareness in reading comprehension, controlling for working memory and reading fluency in Arabic-speaking children. Participants (N = 244) from grades four and five, were classified into typical comprehenders (n = 207) and poor comprehenders (n = 37). All the participants underwent reading comprehension tasks (sentence comprehension and reading maze), orthographic awareness tasks (word choice and parsing), morphological awareness test (root morpheme awareness), working memory test (listening sentence span), word reading fluency, and word reading accuracy and fluency (reading in one minute). The results indicated that morphological awareness and orthographic awareness contributed significantly to reading comprehension (composite scores) only in the typical comprehenders group. Although morphological awareness showed significant predictive relation with reading comprehension, orthographic awareness was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension while controlling for working memory and reading fluency. The findings are discussed, and future directions for research are suggested.

Tipping the Scales: Indiscriminate Use of Interval Scales to Rate Diverse Dysarthric Features.

Error related to incorrect use of rating scales is problematic in the assessment and treatment of dysarthria. The main purpose of this project was to determine scale fit for cardinal speech features of hypokinetic dysarthria. A secondary aim was to determine rater reliability for the two different scales explored. Forty-three speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 25 neurologically healthy control talkers were recorded reading sentences from the Speech Intelligibility Test. Twenty-two healthy female listeners used both an equal appearing interval (EAI) scale and a direct magnitude estimation (DME) scale to rate five perceptual speech features (i.e., overall speech severity, articulatory imprecision, reduced loudness, short rushes of speech, and monotony) from these recordings. Regression analyses were used to determine the linearity of the relationship between the means of the EAI and DME ratings. Inter- and intrarater reliability was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients and Spearman's correlation coefficients, respectively, for both EAI and DME ratings. There was a linear relationship between EAI and DME means for monotony, indicating it is a metathetic dimension. Curvilinear relationships were observed between the EAI and DME means for the other four features, indicating prothetic dimensions. Intra- and interrater reliability values were similar for EAI and DME ratings. Overall, results of this work suggest that DME is the best fit for scaling several hypokinetic dysarthria features, and not the conventionally used EAI scale. Prothetic dimensions best scaled by DME include overall speech severity, articulatory imprecision, reduced loudness, and short rushes of speech. Monotony was the only feature found to be a metathetic dimension and would be best scaled using EAI or DME. Findings call for rethinking the widespread use of EAI scales for rating perceptual features as part of the assessment and treatment of motor speech disorders.

Linguistic and visual similarity judgements predict EEG representational dynamics in visual perception and sentence reading

Linguistic and visual similarity judgements predict EEG representational dynamics in visual perception and sentence reading

Perceptual inference corrects function word errors in reading: Errors that are not noticed do not disrupt eye movements

Both everyday experience and laboratory research demonstrate that readers often fail to notice errors such as an omitted or repeated function word. This phenomenon challenges central tenets of reading and sentence processing models, according to which each word is lexically processed and incrementally integrated into a syntactic representation. One solution would propose that apparent failure to notice such errors reflects post-perceptual inference; the reader does initially perceive the error, but then unconsciously ’corrects’ the perceived string. Such a post-perceptual account predicts that when readers fail to explicitly notice an error, the error will nevertheless disrupt reading, at least fleetingly. We present a large-scale eyetracking experiment investigating whether disruption is detectable in the eye movement record when readers fail to notice an omitted or repeated two-letter function word in naturalistic sentences. Readers failed to notice both omission and repetition errors over 36% of the time. In an analysis that included all trials, both omission and repetition resulted in pronounced eye movement disruption, compared to reading of grammatical control sentences. But in an analysis including only trials on which readers failed to notice the errors, neither type of error disrupted eye movements on any measure. Indeed, there was evidence in some measures that reading was relatively fast on the trials on which errors were missed. It does not appear that when an error is not consciously noticed, it is initially perceived, and then later corrected; rather, linguistic knowledge influences what the reader perceives.

No evidence of altered language laterality in people who stutter across different brain imaging studies of speech and language.

A long-standing neurobiological explanation of stuttering is the incomplete cerebral dominance theory, which refers to competition between two hemispheres for 'dominance' over handedness and speech, causing altered language lateralization. Renewed interest in these ideas came from brain imaging findings in people who stutter of increased activity in the right hemisphere during speech production or of shifts in activity from right to left when fluency increased. Here, we revisited this theory using functional MRI data from children and adults who stutter, and typically fluent speakers (119 participants in total) during four different speech and language tasks: overt sentence reading, overt picture description, covert sentence reading and covert auditory naming. Laterality indices were calculated for the frontal and temporal lobes using the laterality index toolbox running in Statistical Parametric Mapping. We also repeated the analyses with more specific language regions, namely the pars opercularis (Brodmann area 44) and pars triangularis (Brodmann area 45). Laterality indices in people who stutter and typically fluent speakers did not differ, and Bayesian analyses provided moderate to anecdotal levels of support for the null hypothesis (i.e. no differences in laterality in people who stutter compared with typically fluent speakers). The proportions of the people who stutter and typically fluent speakers who were left lateralized or had atypical rightward or bilateral lateralization did not differ. We found no support for the theory that language laterality is reduced or differs in people who stutter compared with typically fluent speakers.

Direct lexical control of eye movements in Chinese reading: Evidence from the co-registration of EEG and eye tracking

The direct-lexical-control hypothesis stipulates that some aspect of a word’s processing determines the duration of the fixation on that word and/or the next. Although the direct lexical control is incorporated into most current models of eye-movement control in reading, the precise implementation varies and the assumptions of the hypothesis may not be feasible given that lexical processing must occur rapidly enough to influence fixation durations. Conclusive empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is therefore lacking. In this article, we report the results of an eye-tracking experiment using the boundary paradigm in which native speakers of Chinese read sentences in which target words were either high- or low-frequency and preceded by a valid or invalid preview. Eye movements were co-registered with electroencephalography, allowing standard analyses of eye-movement measures, divergence point analyses of fixation-duration distributions, and fixated-related potentials on the target words. These analyses collectively provide strong behavioral and neural evidence of early lexical processing and thus strong support for the direct-lexical-control hypothesis. We discuss the implications of the findings for our understanding of how the hypothesis might be implemented, the neural systems that support skilled reading, and the nature of eye-movement control in the reading of Chinese versus alphabetic scripts.

Cognitive load associated with speaking clearly in reverberant rooms

Communication is a fundamental aspect of human interaction, yet many individuals must speak in less-than-ideal acoustic environments daily. Adapting their speech to ensure intelligibility in these varied settings can impose a significant cognitive burden. Understanding this burden on talkers has significant implications for the design of public spaces and workplace environments, as well as speaker training programs. The aim of this study was to examine how room acoustics and speaking style affect cognitive load through self-rating of mental demand and pupillometry. Nineteen adult native speakers of American English were instructed to read sentences in both casual and clear speech—a technique known to enhance intelligibility—across three levels of reverberation (0.05 s, 1.2 s, and 1.83 s at 500–1000 Hz). Our findings revealed that speaking style consistently affects the cognitive load on talkers more than room acoustics across the tested reverberation range. Specifically, pupillometry data suggested that speaking in clear speech elevates the cognitive load comparably to speaking in a room with long reverberation, challenging the conventional view of clear speech as an ‘easy’ strategy for improving intelligibility. These results underscore the importance of accounting for talkers' cognitive load when optimizing room acoustics and developing speech production training.