Sentence Reading Research Articles

Predictability effects and parafoveal processing in older readers.

Normative aging is accompanied by visual and cognitive changes that impact the systems that are critical for fluent reading. The patterns of eye movements during reading displayed by older adults have been characterized as demonstrating a trade-off between longer forward saccades and more word skipping versus higher rates of regressions back to previously read text. This pattern is assumed to reflect older readers' reliance on top-down contextual information to compensate for reduced uptake of parafoveal information from yet-to-be fixated words. However, the empirical evidence for these assumptions is equivocal. This study investigated the depth of older readers' parafoveal processing as indexed by sensitivity to the contextual plausibility of parafoveal words in both neutral and highly constraining sentence contexts. The eye movements of 65 cognitively intact older adults (61-87 years) were compared with data previously collected from young adults in two sentence reading experiments in which critical target words were replaced by valid, plausible, related, or implausible previews until the reader fixated on the target word location. Older and younger adults showed equivalent plausibility preview benefits on first-pass reading measures of both predictable and unpredictable words. However, older readers did not show the benefit of preview orthographic relatedness that was observed in young adults and showed significantly attenuated preview validity effects. Taken together, the data suggest that older readers are specifically impaired in the integration of parafoveal and foveal information but do not show deficits in the depth of parafoveal processing. The implications for understanding the effects of aging on reading are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Gepo with a G, or Jepo with a J? Skilled Readers Generate Orthographic Expectations for Novel Spoken Words Even When Spelling is Uncertain.

English‐speaking children and adults generate orthographic skeletons (i.e., preliminary orthographic representations) solely from aural exposure to novel words. The present study examined whether skilled readers generate orthographic skeletons for all novel words they learn or do so only when the words have a unique possible spelling. To that end, 48 Spanish adults first provided their preferred spellings for all novel words that were to appear in the experiment. Critically, consistent words had only one, while inconsistent words had two possible spellings. Two weeks later, they were trained on the pronunciations of the novel words through aural instruction. They then saw the spellings of these newly acquired words, along with a set of untrained words, in a self‐paced sentence reading task. Participants read previously acquired consistent and inconsistent words presented in their preferred spellings faster than inconsistent words with unpreferred spellings. Importantly, no differences were observed in reading untrained consistent and inconsistent words (either preferred or unpreferred). This suggests that participants had generated orthographic skeletons for trained words with two possible spellings according to their individual spelling preferences. These findings provide further evidence for the orthographic skeleton account and show that initial orthographic representations are generated even when the spelling of a newly acquired word is uncertain.

Deep neural networks reveal topic-level representations of sentences in medial prefrontal cortex, lateral anterior temporal lobe, precuneus, and angular gyrus

When reading a sentence, individual words can be combined to create more complex meaning. In this study, we sought to uncover brain regions that reflect the representation of the meaning of sentences at the topic level, as opposed to the meaning of their individual constituent words when considered irrespective of their context. Using fMRI, we recorded the neural activity of participants while reading sentences. We constructed a topic-level sentence representations using the final layer of a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained to classify Wikipedia sentences into broad semantic categories. This model was contrasted with word-level sentence representations constructed using the average of the word embeddings constituting the sentence. Using representational similarity analysis, we found that the medial prefrontal cortex, lateral anterior temporal lobe, precuneus, and angular gyrus more strongly represent sentence topic-level, compared to word-level, meaning, uncovering the important role of these semantic system regions in the representation of topic-level meaning. Results were comparable when sentence meaning was modelled with a multilayer perceptron that was not sensitive to word order within a sentence, suggesting that the learning objective, in the terms of the topic being modelled, is the critical factor in capturing these neural representational spaces.

Global reading processes in children with high risk of dyslexia: a scanpath analysis.

The study presents the first systematic comparison of the global reading processes via scanpath analysis in Russian-speaking children with and without reading difficulties. First, we compared basic eye-movement characteristics in reading sentences in two groups of children in grades 1 to 5 (N = 72 in high risk of developmental dyslexia group and N = 72 in the control group). Next, using the scanpath method, we investigated which global reading processes these children adopt to read the entire sentence and how these processes differ between the groups. Finally, we were interested in the timeframe of the change in the global reading processes from the 1st to the 5th grades for both groups. We found that the main difference in word-level measures between groups was the reading speed reflected in fixation durations. However, the examination of the five identified global reading processes revealed qualitative similarities in reading patterns between groups. Children in the control group progressed quickly and by the 4th grade engaged in an adult-like fluent reading process. The high-risk group started with the beginner reading process, then similar to first graders in the control group, engaged mostly in the intermediate and upper-intermediate reading processes in 2nd to 4th grades. They reach the advanced process in the 5th grade, the same pattern preferred by the control group second graders. Overall, the scanpath analysis reveals that although there are quantitative differences in the word-level eye-tracking measures between groups, qualitatively children in the high-risk group read on par with typically developing peers but with a 3-year reading delay.

The impact of hyperlinks, skim reading and perceived importance when reading on the Web.

It has previously been shown that readers spend a great deal of time skim reading on the Web and that this type of reading can affect comprehension of text. Across two experiments, we examine how hyperlinks influence perceived importance of sentences and how perceived importance in turn affects reading behaviour. In Experiment 1, participants rated the importance of sentences across passages of Wikipedia text. In Experiment 2, a different set of participants read these passages while their eye movements were tracked, with the task being either reading for comprehension or skim reading. Reading times of sentences were analysed in relation to the type of task and the importance ratings from Experiment 1. Results from Experiment 1 show readers rated sentences without hyperlinks as being of less importance than sentences that did feature hyperlinks, and this effect is larger when sentences are lower on the page. It was also found that short sentences with more links were rated as more important, but only when they were presented at the top of the page. Long sentences with more links were rated as more important regardless of their position on the page. In Experiment 2, higher importance scores resulted in longer sentence reading times, measured as fixation durations. When skim reading, however, importance ratings had a lesser impact on online reading behaviour than when reading for comprehension. We suggest readers are less able to establish the importance of a sentence when skim reading, even though importance could have been assessed by information that would be fairly easy to extract (i.e. presence of hyperlinks, length of sentences, and position on the screen).

Are Emoji Processed Like Words? An Eye-Tracking Study.

In this study, we investigate the processing of object-denoting emoji in sentences using eye tracking. We hypothesize that (a) such emoji are more difficult to process when used as word replacement; and (b) their processing is subject to ambiguity constraints similarly to what happens with words. We conduct two experiments in which participants have to read sentences in which an emoji either follows or replaces a word. Control stimuli not containing emoji are also tested. In the second experiment, the emoji are presented in two different disambiguating contexts. First fixation duration, total visit duration, and total revisit duration are modeled in the various conditions using linear mixed models. Both our hypotheses are supported. We observe longer total visit time for non-redundant emoji, and higher values for all three measures for ambiguous emoji. We conclude that lexical access may be more difficult for emoji especially when they are used as word replacements and their meaning is not immediately clear. Furthermore, we also conclude that non-redundant emoji are more difficult to integrate in the processing of the sentence than the equivalent words, or emoji used in a redundant way. In turn, our results indicate that emoji may not always be as immediate and easy to process for readers in spite of theirpopularity.

Correction for Yang-Huang J, van Grieken A, You Y, et al. Changes in Family Poverty Status and Child Health. Pediatrics. 2021;147(4):e2020016717.

Errors occurred in the article by Yang-Huang J et al, titled “Changes in Family Poverty Status and Child Health” published in the April 2021 issue of Pediatrics (2021;147(4):e2020016717; doi:10.1542/peds.2020-016717).On page 1, Abstract, in the Results paragraph, the second sentence reads: “Independent of current poverty status, children born into poverty had an odds ratio (OR) of 1.68 for having overweight/obesity and a lower physical HRQoL (OR = −1.32) than those not born into poverty.” This should have read: “Independent of current poverty status, children born into poverty had an odds ratio (OR) of 1.68 for having overweight/obesity and a lower physical HRQoL (β = −1.32) than those not born into poverty.”On page 1, Abstract, in the Results paragraph, the third sentence reads: “Children having experienced 3 to 4 episodes of poverty had an OR of 1.94 for having asthma and a lower physical HRQoL (OR = −3.32) compared with children from never-poor families.” This should have read: “Children having experienced 3 to 4 episodes of poverty had an OR of 1.94 for having asthma and a lower physical HRQoL (β = −3.32) compared with children from never-poor families.”On page 5, Table 4, column 6, “0.03 (−1.28 to 1.22)” should be “−0.03 (−1.28 to 1.22)”.The online article has been corrected.

Preview frequency effects in reading: evidence from Chinese.

Studies about sentence reading have shown that visual and lexical information beyond the currently fixated word can be integrated across fixations. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm has been used widely to explore the extent to which parafoveal information can be processed before a word is fixated on. However, a critical review of the current literature suggests that unrelated mask previews are an unlikely baseline control with zero lexical activation, blurring the nature of experimental effects observed in the paradigm. The present study, therefore, aimed at shedding light on the effect of parafoveal mask properties through a manipulation of preview word frequency. Low-frequency preview words that are unrelated to target words elicited a larger interference than high-frequency preview words. We discuss implications of the preview frequency effect for computational models of eye-movement control in reading.

Evaluation of a system that the reading of sentences by a voice synthesizer and the highlighting sentences

Evaluation of a system that the reading of sentences by a voice synthesizer and the highlighting sentences

Comparison of Logarithmic Reading Charts for Visual Assessment in Normally Sighted Participants.

Logarithmic reading charts provide standardized measures of reading performance. Here we show that existing charts provide equivalent assessments of visual aspects of reading that are in good agreement with traditional measures of visual acuity and seem uninfluenced by cognitive (linguistic) factors. The aims of this study were to (1) determine the equivalence of logarithmic charts of sentence and word reading, (2) evaluate the relationship between reading chart performance and more traditional measures of visual assessment, and (3) establish the influence of linguistic factors on reading chart performance. In a sample of 82 normally sighted participants, we determined performance on the reading measures (e.g., reading acuity, reading speed, critical print size) of the following logarithmic charts of sentence and word reading: The Colenbrander English Continuous Text Near Vision Card, Radner Reading Chart, Minnesota Reading Acuity Chart, and Smith-Kettlewell Reading Chart. In doing so, we compared performance on reading measures between charts and with performance on more traditional measures of visual assessment (uncrowded and crowded letter acuity, stereoacuity, accommodation) and cognitive measures of word knowledge and ability (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Vocabulary Subtest, National Adult Reading Test). Factor analysis confirmed that performance on the reading measures (reading acuity, reading speed, critical print size) was equivalent across charts. Reading test performance was also related to more traditional measures of vision, the most consistent of which were significant associations between reading acuity and acuity for single-letter optotypes. There were no significant associations between reading chart performance and cognitive measures of word knowledge and ability. The findings presented here suggest that logarithmic charts composed of sentences and words represent an alternative to traditional letter acuity testing. This is particularly the case for measures of reading acuity.

Subject–Verb Number Agreement in Bilingual Processing: (Lack of) Age of Acquisition and Proficiency Effects

Children acquire language more easily than adults, though it is controversial whether this faculty declines as a result of a critical period or something else. To address this question, we investigate the role of age of acquisition and proficiency on morphosyntactic processing in adult monolinguals and bilinguals. Spanish monolinguals and intermediate and advanced early and late bilinguals of Spanish read sentences with adjacent subject–verb number agreements and violations and chose one of four pictures. Eye-tracking data revealed that all groups were sensitive to the violations and attended more to more salient plural and preterit verbs than less obvious singular and present verbs, regardless of AoA and proficiency level. We conclude that the processing of adjacent SV agreement depends on perceptual salience and language use, rather than AoA or proficiency. These findings support usage-based theories of language acquisition.

Interaction between Phrasal Structure and Vowel Tenseness in German: An Acoustic and Articulatory Study.

Phrase-final lengthening affects the segments preceding a prosodic boundary. This prosodic variation is generally assumed to be independent of the phonemic identity. We refer to this as the 'uniform lengthening hypothesis' (ULH). However, in German, lax vowels do not undergo lengthening for word stress or shortening for increased speech rate, indicating that temporal properties might interact with phonemic identity. We test the ULH by comparing the effect of the boundary on acoustic and kinematic measures for tense and lax vowels and several coda consonants. We further examine if the boundary effect decreases with distance from the boundary. Ten native speakers of German were recorded by means of electromagnetic articulography (EMA) while reading sentences that contained six minimal pairs varying in vowel tenseness and boundary type. In line with the ULH, the results show that the acoustic durations of lax vowels are lengthened phrase-finally, similarly to tense vowels. We find that acoustic lengthening is stronger the closer the segments are to the boundary. Articulatory parameters of the closing movements toward the post-vocalic consonants are affected by both phrasal position and identity of the preceding vowel. The results are discussed with regard to the interaction between prosodic structure and vowel tenseness.

Picture Description in the Assessment of Connected Speech Intelligibility in Parkinson’s Disease: A Pilot Study

Introduction: Assessment of intelligibility in dysarthria tends to rely on oral reading of sentences or words. However, self-generated utterances are closer to a client's natural speech. This study investigated how transcription of utterances elicited by picture description can be used in the assessment of intelligibility in speakers with Parkinson’s disease. Methods: Speech samples from eleven speakers with Parkinson’s disease and six neurologically healthy persons were audio-recorded. Forty-two naive listeners completed transcriptions of self-generated sentences from a picture description task and orally read sentences from the Swedish Test of Intelligibility, as well as scaled ratings of narrative speech samples. Results: Intelligibility was higher in orally read than self-generated sentences and higher for content words than for the whole sentence in self-generated sentences for most of the speakers, although these within-group differences were not statistically significant at the group level. Adding contextual leads for the listeners increased intelligibility in self-generated utterances significantly but with individual variation. Although correlations between the intelligibility measures were at least moderate or strong, there was a considerable inter- and intra-speaker variability in intelligibility scores between tasks for the speakers with Parkinson’s disease, indicating individual variation of factors that impact intelligibility. Intelligibility scores from neurologically healthy speakers were generally high across tasks with no significant differences between the conditions. Conclusion: Within-speaker variability supports literature recommendations to use multiple methods and tasks when assessing intelligibility. The inclusion of transcription of self-generated utterances elicited by picture description to the intelligibility assessment has the potential to provide additional information to assessment methods based on oral reading of pre-scripted sentences and to inform the planning of interventions.

Word- and Text-Level Processes Contributing to Fluent Reading of Word Lists and Sentences.

In this study, we investigated how word- and text-level processes contribute to different types of reading fluency measures. We aimed to increase our understanding of the underlying processes necessary for fluent reading. The sample included 73 Dutch Grade 3 children, who were assessed on serial word reading rate (familiar words), word-list reading fluency (increasingly difficult words), and sentence reading fluency. Word-level processes were individual word recognition speed (discrete word reading) and sequential processing efficiency (serial digit naming). Text-level processes were receptive vocabulary and syntactic skills. The results showed that word- and text-level processes combined accounted for a comparable amount of variance in all fluency outcomes. Both word-level processes were moderate predictors of all fluency outcomes. However, vocabulary only moderately predicted sentence reading fluency, and syntactic skills merely contributed to sentence reading fluency indirectly through vocabulary. The findings indicate that sequential processing efficiency has a crucial role in reading fluency across various measures besides individual word recognition speed. Additionally, text-level processes come into play when complexity and context availability of fluency measures increases, but the exact timing requires further study. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions and their possible value for diagnostic assessment and intervention of reading difficulties.

An Experimental study on the processing of two-clause sentences

Some temporal conjunctions can express a variety of meanings on a causal-temporal dimension. By inference, a when-clause may indicate a cause, an event prior in time, or even an event occurring simultaneously with the main clause event (Bever & Townsend, 1970). Using a self-paced reading experiment in the program Psyscope, we crossed the independent variables connective (when) and position (first position – Subordinate-Main – and second position – Main-Subordinate) to test if readers focus more on the main clause than on the subordinate clause and if readers use the order-of-mention strategy to interpret two-clause sentences conjoined with when establishing a causal-temporal relationship. Our results showed a significant effect of both structure and position factors. The online results showed that, in general, the main clause receives more reading times than the subordinate clause and that readers spent more time reading the main-subordinate sentences. The offline results indicate that the information about the first event is easier to recall if the when-clause is the first clause. Thus, the subordinate-main condition presented more accuracy rates. The order of mention strategy did not seem to be used during sentence reading processing, however, the accuracy rates were higher in conditions, in which the linguistic order mirrored the occurrence order. The main-subordinate order affected the ease of late comprehension, although it eased the reading processing. 

True Self and True Thing: A New Reading and Reinterpretation of Wang Lü’s “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings”

1 True Self and True Thing: A New Reading and Reinterpretation of Wang Lü’s “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings” Peng Feng School of Arts, Peking University pengf@pku.edu.cn Since the early 20th century, Wang Lü 王履 and his Album of Mount Hua Paintings 華山圖 冊 have received extensive attention in the fields of art history and aesthetics. In addition to countless articles and book chapters, three monographs are worth noting: Kathlyn Liscomb’s Learning from Mount Hua,1 Xue Yongnian’s 薛永年 Wang Lü,2 and the catalogue Wang Lü’s Album of Mount Hua Paintings.3 Considering that Wang Lü was known less as a painter than as a physician, it is surprising that his paintings and theory of painting should attract so much attention. Indeed, Wang’s essay is worth these efforts. Despite the quantity of research to date, some of his most important ideas require elucidation, namely, the “true self” and the “true thing.” In my view, these are the most important themes in his most important text on painting theory — “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings”重為 華山圖序. Back to the Original Text One reason this topic has not received sufficient attention is that the original text was altered. Before the first publication of his original text in 1978,4 Wang’s essay was read in a corrupted form. There are 13 differences between the original text and the corrupted one.5 Among these alterations, one change crucially altered the meaning. The original sentence read as follows: “If Mount Hua did not give me my self, could I be me” 苟非華山之我余余 2 其我邪? This sentence was changed into “If I did not know the visual forms of Mount Hua, how could I paint them” 苟非識華山之形我其能圖耶? Liscomb corrected many errors in her impressive monograph Learning from Mount Hua, including changing the wrong pronunciation “Wang Li” to the correct “Wang Lü,”6 and the wrong title “Preface to the Mount Hua Paintings” to the correct rendering “Preface to the Second Version of the Mount Hua Paintings.”7 Liscomb also noticed that the original text had been changed, but she retained the altered text. In a note, she wrote: “The original text at this point seems garbled: Gou fei huashan zhi wo yu, yu qi wo ye? For lack of a better solution, the present translation is based on Yu Jianhua’s 俞劍華 interpretation of this sentence as: Gou fei shi huashan zhi xing, wo qi neng tu ye? …Yu does not identify this as his interpretation, but presents it as the proper text.”8 Liscomb was unaware that Yu had not seen the original text, and so she accepted the altered text for the original one. In other words, it was not Yu’s interpretation, but rather a textual error that Yu mistook for the original text. In fact, in an earlier edition, Yuding peiwenzhai shuhua pu 禦定佩文齋書畫譜, this sentence had already been altered. Yu likely relied on this version when he edited Zhongguo hualun leibian 中國畫論類編. It is hard for me to pin down the reasons for the alteration. Perhaps this sentence was obscure, and the editor of Yuding peiwenzhai shuhua pu wanted to make it clear. In revising this sentence, he likely referred to the first preface, i.e. “You huashan tu ji shi xu” 游華山圖記詩序, which says: “You would think me preposterous if I wrote about Mt. Hua without having traveled there” 文而弗遊,將以餘為誕.9 Perhaps art historians will discover the truth some time in the future. In any case, the original text was not garbled. Xue Yongnian had already read this sentence and punctuated it correctly.10 But Xue did not 3 follow up on the theoretical implications of that sentence. This oversight more or less reflects his mistakes in subsequent punctuation.11 The “Past Self” and the “Present Self” As mentioned earlier, the sentence can be read as follows: “If Mount Hua did not give me my self, could I be me?” How could Mount Hua give Wang his self? Did Wang have no self before climbing Mount Hua? How could a man live so long without his self? Wang Lü admitted that he had studied painting for many years and aimed to follow the old...

The Variability in Phonology of Indonesian Learner’s Interlanguage: A case study on English marked-fricatives

Interlanguage is the most fruitful issue in the field of second language acquisition. In the interlanguage phase, Indonesian learners of English tend to alternate between two forms of language features to express the same language function where a variation of language forms will be exhibited to mark the variable of linguistic function. Variability in phonology of interlanguage is the most interesting subject to investigate based on markedness differential hypothesis theory. This study is aimed at finding out (1) marked sounds of English fricatives: [θ], [ð], [ʃ], and [ʒ] which are indicated as interlanguage variants; and (2) how interlanguage sound variants emerge based on surround the varying element. There were 30 college students of English study purposively selected to become respondents in this research representing advance and intermediate proficiency of English speaking. The data were taken from two types of task namely word list reading and sentence reading. There were 600-word tokens containing target marked sounds of fricative [θ], [ð], [ʃ], and [ʒ] obtained from the data collection. The analysis was done quantitatively to find the percentages of non-interlanguge sounds and interlanguge ones produced by respondents. The result showed that fricatives such as [θ], [ʃ], and [ʒ] have phonological variations in interlanguage with certain positions of word being pronounced. These phonological variations emerge due to the generalization of pronunciation by similar-ending sounds, the certain vowel sound preceding marked sounds, and the absence of consonant clusters in learners’ native language which bears the variation of certain marked fricatives of English.

Correction for Sieving RE, McRee A-L, Mehus C, etal. Sexual and Reproductive Health Discussions During Preventive Visits. Pediatrics. 2021;148(2):e2020049411.

Errors occurred in the article by Sieving R et al, titled “Sexual and Reproductive Health Discussions During Preventive Visits,” published in the August 2021 issue of Pediatrics (2021;148[2]:e2020049411; doi:10.1542/peds.2020-049411).On page 3, under Results, the first sentence reads as follows: “Our sample (Table 1) included youth who self-identified as non-Hispanic white (54%), non-Hispanic Black (15%), Hispanic (24%), and other racial groups (7%).” This should have read: “Our sample (Table 1) included youth who self-identified as non-Hispanic White (52%), non-Hispanic Black (14%), Hispanic (24%), and other racial groups (10%).”On page 4, Table 1 included errors in the description of the adolescent sample’s race and ethnicity.The online article has been corrected.

The letter position coding mechanism of second language words during sentence reading: Evidence from eye movements.

We conducted three eye movement experiments to investigate the mechanism for coding letter positions in a person's second language during sentence reading; we also examined the role of morphology in this process with a more rigorous manipulation. Given that readers obtain information not only from currently fixated words (i.e., the foveal area) but also from upcoming words (i.e., the parafoveal area) to guide their reading, we examined both when the targets were fixated (Exp. 1) and when the targets were seen parafoveally (Exps. 2 and 3). First, we found the classic transposed letter (TL) effect in Exp. 1, but not in Exp. 2 or 3. This implies that flexible letter position coding exists during sentence reading. However, this was limited to words located in the foveal area, suggesting that L2 readers whose L2 proficiency is not as high as skilled native readers are not able to extract and utilise the parafoveal letter identity and position information of a word, whether the word length is long (Exp. 2) or short (Exp. 3). Second, we found morphological information to influence the magnitude of the TL effect in Exp. 1. These results provide new eye movement evidence for the flexibility of L2 letter position coding during sentence reading, as well as the interactions between the different internal representations of words in this process. Future L2 reading frameworks should integrate word recognition and eye movement control models.

Semantic integration of multidimensional perceptual information in L1 sentence comprehension

AbstractMany studies have substantiated the perceptual symbol system, which assumes a routine generation of perceptual information during language comprehension, but little is known about the processing format in which the perceptual information of different dimensions is conveyed simultaneously during sentence comprehension. The current study provides the first experimental evidence of how multidimensional perceptual information (color and shape) was processed during online sentence comprehension in Mandarin. We designed three consecutive sentence–picture verification tasks that only differed in the delay of the display of pictures preceded by declarative sentences. The processing was analyzed in three stages based on time intervals (i.e., 0ms, +750ms, +1500ms). The response accuracy and response time data were reported. The initial stage (i.e., ISI=0ms) attested the match effect of color and shape, but the simulated representation of color and shape did not interact. In the intermediate stage (i.e., ISI=750ms), the routinely simulated color and shape interacted, but the match facilitation was found only in cases where one perceptual information was in mismatch while the other was not. In the final stage (i.e., ISI=1500ms), the match facilitation of one particular perceptual property was influenced by a mismatch with the other perceptual property. These results suggested that multiple perceptual information presented simultaneously was processed in an additive manner to a large extent before entering into the final stage, where the simulated perceptual information was integrated in a multiplicative manner. The results also suggested that color and shape were comparable to object recognition when conjointly conveyed. In relation to other evidence from behavioral and event-related potential studies on sentence reading in the discussion, we subscribed to the idea that the full semantic integration became available over time.