Unrelated Condition Research Articles

Reduced N400 semantic priming effects in adult survivors of paediatric and adolescent traumatic brain injury

The immediate and long-term neural correlates of linguistic processing deficits reported following paediatric and adolescent traumatic brain injury (TBI) are poorly understood. Therefore, the current research investigated event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited during a semantic picture–word priming experiment in two groups of highly functioning individuals matched for various demographic variables and behavioural language performance. Participants in the TBI group had a recorded history of paediatric or adolescent TBI involving injury mechanisms associated with diffuse white matter pathology, while participants in the control group never sustained any insult to the brain. A comparison of N400 Mean Amplitudes elicited during three experimental conditions with varying semantic relatedness between the prime and target stimuli (congruent, semantically related, unrelated) revealed a significantly smaller N400 response in the unrelated condition in the TBI group, indicating residual linguistic processing deviations when processing demands required the quick detection of a between-category (unrelated) violation of semantic expectancy.

Laparoscopic repair of iatrogenic anterior diaphragmatic hernia

Congenital diaphragmatic hernia is a relatively common condition with an incidence of about 1 in 2000 to 1 in 5000 live births. Most cases occur posterolaterally through the foramen of Bochdalek and usually present immediately after birth with respiratory distress. Congenital anterior diaphragmatic hernia (Morgagni's hernia) is rare, accounting for less than 5% of all types of congenital diaphragmatic hernias. Most of these cases are seen in older children and are usually asymptomatically discovered incidentally or during investigations for some other unrelated condition. Iatrogenic anterior diaphragmatic hernia on the other hand is extremely rare. This report describes an iatrogenic anterior diaphragmatic hernia in a 6-month-old child following cardiac surgery that was repaired laparoscopically. The literature on the subject is also reviewed. Key words: Anterior diaphragmatic hernia, Iatrogenic, laparoscopic repair.

Audit of unplanned re-attendance to a paediatric emergency department

Aims This audit examines unplanned re-attendance at a Paediatric Emergency Department (ED) against a Department of Health Clinical Indicator published April 2011. This states we should aim ‘To reduce avoidable re-attendances at A&E by improving the care and communication delivered during the original attendance’. Methods Information regarding patients who attended the ED more than once in seven days was collected retrospectively using a proforma. The period studied was May 2011. Exclusion criteria were re-attendance on a planned date or with an unrelated condition. The aim was to collect data for at least 50 re-attendees. Work is ongoing, collecting information on a control group. Results 51 of 91 re-attendees (56%) were eligible for inclusion. 30 of the 51 were under two years of age. Most re-attendances were within three days of initial attendance. Medical patients made up 82% of re-attendees. Injured patients made up the remainder. The most common presenting complaints amongst medical re-attendees were vomiting, pyrexia and diarrhoea. The most common final diagnosis was viral gastroenteritis. Most injured patients were diagnosed with soft tissue injury. 73% received intervention other than advice on first attendance. 59% had a change to management on re-attendance and this is explored. In the majority, appropriate advice had been given and documented. For 31% it had not. 22% of re-attendances were judged medically necessary. In a further 12% this was uncertain. 67% of re-attendances were felt not to have been medically necessary. It was felt that re-attendance could have been prevented by different treatment for 16% of patients and that further advice only could have prevented re-attendance for 41%. 55% of re-attendees had attended the same ED in the preceding six months. The most common reasons behind frequent attendance were identified as ‘failure to use other services appropriately’ (13 of the 28 frequent attenders) and ‘anxious carer.’ Conclusion Just over half of re-attendances were unplanned. Many of these may be preventable by giving further advice on initial attendance. Most re-attendees had a history of frequent attendance. It may be appropriate to address the underlying causes behind this.

Electrophysiological evidence for phonological priming in Spanish Sign Language lexical access

Interactive activation models of lexical access assume that the presentation of a given word activates not only its lexical representation but also those corresponding to words similar in form. Current theories are based on data from oral and written languages, and therefore signed languages represent a special challenge for existing theories of word recognition and lexical access since they allow us to question what the genuine fundamentals of human language are and what might be modality-specific adaptation. The aim of the present study is to determine the electrophysiological correlates and time course of phonological processing of Spanish Sign Language (LSE). Ten deaf native LSE signers and ten deaf non-native but highly proficient LSE signers participated in the experiment. We used the ERP methodology and form-based priming in the context of a delayed lexical decision task, manipulating phonological overlap (i.e. related prime-target pairs shared either handshape or location parameters). Results showed that both parameters under study modulated brain responses to the stimuli in different time windows. Phonological priming of location resulted in a higher amplitude of the N400 component (300–500ms window) for signs but not for non-signs. This effect may be explained in terms of initial competition among candidates. Moreover, the fact that a higher amplitude N400 for related pairs was found for signs but not for non-signs points to an effect at the lexical level. Handshape overlap produced a later effect (600–800ms window). In this window, a more negative-going wave for the related condition than for the unrelated condition was found for non-signs in the native signers group. The findings are discussed in relation to current models of lexical access and word recognition. Finally, differences between native and non-native signers point to a less efficient use of phonological information among the non-native signers.

Presentation and management of carotid artery aneurysms and pseudoaneurysms

The objective of this study was to review a single-institution contemporary experience with extracranial aneurysms of the carotid artery. A retrospective review was conducted of patients evaluated for an aneurysm of the extracranial carotid artery from 2005 to 2010. Demographics, presentation, and operative management were reviewed. The mean follow-up was 22 months (range, 1-58 months). Over the study period, 16 aneurysms and pseudoaneurysms were identified in 15 patients. Of these, 14 aneurysms (in six men and eight women with mean age of 63 years) underwent surgical repair. The mean aneurysm size was 2.45 cm (range, 0.8-5 cm). One aneurysm (7.1%) was associated with neurologic symptoms, and 13 were asymptomatic. The underlying etiology was trauma in five (35.7%), prior carotid endarterectomy in five (35.7%), and degenerative atherosclerosis in four (28.6%). Aneurysms were isolated to the common carotid artery in six (42.9%), internal carotid artery in five (35.7%), and carotid bifurcation in three (21.4%). Five patients underwent aneurysmectomy with primary repair, seven underwent repair with an interposition graft, one required an innominate to common carotid artery bypass, and one patient had a plication and patch angioplasty. No mortalities or neurologic events were documented within 30 days. One patient had transient cranial nerve palsy. One patient required reintervention at 4 months for stenosis of the bypass graft, and one patient died at 10 months from an unrelated condition. There were no neurologic events on follow-up. Carotid artery aneurysms and pseudoaneurysms are uncommon and usually asymptomatic. Prior trauma and carotid surgery were common etiologies. The location of the aneurysms was equally distributed between the internal and common carotid arteries. Surgical repair was safe and effective with no significant morbidity or mortality and good midterm stroke prevention.

Electrophysiological correlates of automatic spreading of activation in patients with psychotic disorder and first-degree relatives

BackgroundSemantic network abnormalities in patients with psychotic disorder were examined using associative prime–target relations with two stimulus asynchronies (SOAs; −250ms and −500ms) to assess the time course of automatic and more controlled processes of semantic priming. To investigate whether an aberrant semantic network system is part of the familial liability for psychosis, healthy siblings of patients with psychotic disorder were additionally examined. The N400 event-related brain potential (ERP) was used as a probe of semantic processing. MethodTwenty-two patients with psychotic disorder, twenty siblings of patients with psychotic disorder and twenty controls participated in a lexical decision task and ERPs were recorded to target words that were associatively, indirectly or not related to their preceding prime word. ResultsAssociative priming of the N400 amplitude was found across all participants and both SOAs, but no between-group differences were found for the N400 amplitude (both SOAs). The Group×Condition interaction of the indirect priming N400 latency of the three groups was just short of statistical significance (F2,59=2.7, p=.077). Patients showed an increased indirect priming effect of the N400 latency only at short SOA, with decreased latency of the indirectly related compared to the unrelated condition, while controls did not show an indirect priming N400 latency effect. No between-group differences in N400 latency of indirect priming were found at the long SOA. Only a trend towards a Group×Condition interaction of the indirect priming N400 latency between the sibling and the controls was found, but without a main effect of indirect priming in the sibling group. ConclusionThese preliminary results support the assumption of a hyperactive semantic network in patients with psychotic disorder, which develops under automatic processes and decreases with more controlled processes, but does not represent clear trait familial liability.

Making related errors facilitates learning, but learners do not know it

Producing an error, so long as it is followed by corrective feedback, has been shown to result in better retention of the correct answers than does simply studying the correct answers from the outset. The reasons for this surprising finding, however, have not been investigated. Our hypothesis was that the effect might occur only when the errors produced were related to the targeted correct response. In Experiment 1, participants studied either related or unrelated word pairs, manipulated between participants. Participants either were given the cue and target to study for 5 or 10s or generated an error in response to the cue for the first 5s before receiving the correct answer for the final 5s. When the cues and targets were related, error-generation led to the highest correct retention. However, consistent with the hypothesis, no benefit was derived from generating an error when the cue and target were unrelated. Latent semantic analysis revealed that the errors generated in the related condition were related to the target, whereas they were not related to the target in the unrelated condition.Experiment 2 replicated these findings in a within-participants design. We found, additionally, that people did not know that generating an error enhanced memory, even after they had just completed the task that produced substantial benefits.

Lexical activation in bilinguals’ speech production is dynamic: How language ambiguous words can affect cross-language activation

Is the bilingual language production system a dynamic system that can operate in different language activation states? Three experiments investigated to what extent cross-language phonological co-activation effects in language production are sensitive to the composition of the stimulus list. L1 Dutch–L2 English bilinguals decided whether or not a particular phoneme was part of the L2 English name of the picture. The phoneme was either part of the English name of the picture (/b/ or /t/ in bottle), the Dutch name of the picture (/f/ in fles [bottle], the cross-language condition), or was not part of either the English or Dutch names of the picture (/p/, the unrelated condition). In Experiment 1, we added a set of filler pictures with noncognate names in Dutch and English. In contrast, the filler pictures in Experiment 2 all had cognate names in Dutch and English. In Experiment 3 the fillers consisted of a mixture of pictures with cognate (25%) and noncognate (75%) names. Cross-language phonological co-activation appeared sensitive to the composition of the stimulus list: Phonological co-activation effects were observed in Experiments 2 and 3, but not in Experiment 1. The results indicate that the bilingual language production system dynamic and can operate in different modes, depending upon the composition of the stimulus list. We discuss implications for experimental paradigms used in the field of bilingual language production, and for current bilingual language production models.

Oestrus ovis infestation of a dog in the UK

In March 2011, a dog on a sheep farm in the Cotswolds, UK, expelled a mature live third-stage larva of the sheep nasal botfly, Oestrus ovis, after a violent and traumatic sneezing episode. The dog had been infected with first-stage larvae deposited by an adult fly the previous autumn; larval development had progressed throughout the winter and spring with few apparent clinical signs and possibly masked by ongoing immunotherapy for an unrelated condition. Identification of the parasite at the Liverpool School of Veterinary Science was made from a submitted puparium, the "chrysalis" stage to which the larva had progressed within days of its expulsion from dog's nose. To the authors' knowledge this is the first report of nasal botfly infestation of a dog in the UK.

Long-term effect of MRI on sacral anterior root stimulator: the Stoke Mandeville experience

Retrospective review study. To identify whether it is safe to perform a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exam on patients who have a sacral anterior root stimulator (SARS). Adult patients with spinal cord injury and implanted SARS attending the National Spinal Injuries Centre who have had MRI scans. Retrospective review between 1989 and 2010. The effect of the MRI scans on the function of the SARS (Finetech-Brindley, UK) was assessed up to 6 months following MRI at 0.2 and 1.5 T. A total of 18 patients with SARS implants had MRI scans at 0.2 and 1.5 T of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, head, shoulder and pelvis. MRI examinations were abandoned on two occasions in one patient due to radiofrequency interference. One patient's stimulator ceased to function 5 months following MRI; both of these patients showing complications had their MRI examinations at 0.2 T. There were no adverse effects at 1.5 T. In one patient the SARS was removed within 6 months after MRI due to an unrelated medical condition. A total of 17 patients showed no symptoms that required terminating the examination. In all the 11 patients with a complete and functioning implant before MRI at 1.5 T, the SARS was functioning appropriately, and no change in bladder function was reported up to 6 months following MRI. It is safe to perform an MRI scan on patients with SARS providing the examination is conducted in a 1.5 T system.

Development of a Screening Tool for Pediatric Sexual Assault May Reduce Emergency-Department Visits

To define the characteristics of a novel screening tool used to identify which prepubertal children should potentially receive an initial evaluation for alleged sexual assault in a nonemergent setting. Electronic medical records were retrospectively reviewed from 2007 to 2008. Visits with a chief complaint or diagnosis of alleged sexual assault for patients aged 12 years or younger were identified. Complete records, those with no evaluation before pediatric emergency-department arrival, and those with child advocacy center follow-up were included. Records were reviewed to answer the following: (1) Did the incident occur in the past 72 hours, and was there oral or genital to genital/anal contact? (2) Was genital or rectal pain, bleeding, discharge, or injury present? (3) Was there concern for the child's safety? (4) Was an unrelated emergency medical condition present? An affirmative response to any of the questions was considered a positive screen (warranting immediate evaluation); all others were considered negative screens. Those who had positive physical examination findings of anogenital trauma or infection, a change in custody, or an emergency medical condition were defined as high risk (having a positive outcome). A total of 163 cases met study criteria; 90 of 163 (55%) patients had positive screens and 73 of 163 (45%) had negative screens. No patients with negative screens were classified as high risk. The screening tool has sensitivity of 100% (95% confidence interval: 93.5-100.0). This screening tool may be effective for determining which children do not require emergency-department evaluation for alleged sexual assault.

Word form encoding in Chinese word naming and word typing

The process of word form encoding was investigated in primed word naming and word typing with Chinese monosyllabic words. The target words shared or did not share the onset consonants with the prime words. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 100 ms or 300 ms. Typing required the participants to enter the phonetic letters of the target word, which correspond roughly to the onset and the rhyme of the word’s syllable. Regardless of SOAs, response times were shorter in the related condition than in the unrelated condition (an onset priming effect) for word typing, but were similar for word naming. The results suggest that naming and typing in Chinese may involve somewhat different word form encoding processes (syllable driven in naming, but segment driven in typing) even though both tasks require accessing the phonological codes. It appears, then, that the kind of outputs a production system is designed to produce can flexibly and adaptively alter the way the system is organized and operates.

ACESSO LEXICAL E PRODUÇÃO DE FALA BILÍNGUE: O PROCESSO DE SELEÇÃO LINGUÍSTICA

This article2 presents the results of an investigation of the pro-duction of bilingual speech, in which interlingual interference effects inthe speech of bilinguals Portuguese-Spanish and Spanish-Portuguese wereanalyzed. The materials, designed within the picture-word interferenceparadigm, language interference (semantic, phonological/ orthographicand identity) and cognate (cognates, not cognates and false cognates) ef-fects were manipulated. The results provide evidence for the language-specific selection hypothesis (Costa et.al., 1999), since the naming laten-cies was faster in the related condition, in contexts involving languageidentity and phonological/ orthographic facilitation efects, as well as inthe unrelated condition, when contexts involved semantic interference ef-fects. Furthermore, the cognate status of words played an important rolein the process of lexicalization, a fact that needs to be further assessed.

Occupational outcome after surgery in patients with a rotator cuff tear due to a work-related injury or occupational disease. A series of 262 cases

The goals of this study were to establish the occupational outcome after surgery in patients with a rotator cuff tear from a work-related injury (WRI) or occupational disease (OD) and determine which factors and conditions affected return to work. return to work was possible for this type of patient. This questionnaire-based study comprised 262 shoulders in 254 patients with a WRI/OD who had surgery performed on their shoulder between 2000 and 2005. The average age was 50.5 ± 6.4 years. The following variables were analysed: employment status (private sector, self-employed, government employee), type of work (non-manual, manual, heavy manual labour), nature of tendon injury and surgical technique (open, mini-open and arthroscopy). Return to work occurred in 59.5% of the cases. Factors that prevented return to work (40.4% of the cases) included retirement (14.1%), an unrelated medical condition (10.3%), and the outcome of the operated shoulder (16.0%). Age had an impact on return to work (P<5 × 10(-4)). The type of work and nature of tendon injury did not affect return to work, but did affect time away from work. Employment status and surgical technique had an effect on return to work, but not on time away from work. Age was a decisive factor for return to work. Retirement seemed to be the most common choice starting at 55 years of age. Arthroscopy seemed to have reduced the impact of the WRI on the results, particularly on the time away from work. A preoperative evaluation of the patient's probability of returning to work should be done based on occupational and injury features. There may be a longer delay in returning to work for certain profiles of work (manual labour) and tendon injury. Patient management can be improved by knowing the factors and conditions that influence return to work. Level IV - Retrospective study.

Better Off Not Knowing

Most clinicians recognize a variant of this story from their clinical practice. A test is ordered for appropriate indications, but provides information about an unrelated condition, leaving the physician and patient to contend with information they had not sought but which, nevertheless, they find impossible to ignore. We contend that patients would be better served if the medical profession adopted simple interventions to limit physicians’ access to unsolicited diagnostic information. In this article we discuss how this information can end up harming patients, and suggest steps the health system could take to reduce the availability of such information.

Accessing Semantic Person Knowledge: Temporal Dynamics of Nonstrategic Categorical and Associative Priming

Recent theories of semantic memory suggest a subdivision into several separate domains of knowledge. The present study examined the structure of semantic person knowledge by analyzing both behavioral and ERP correlates of associative priming (via co-occurrence and/or shared semantic information) versus purely categorical priming (via shared occupational information). Participants performed familiarity decisions for target faces, which were preceded by sandwich-masked prime names at either short (33 msec) or long (1033 msec) SOAs. Although masking effectively prevented explicit prime recognition, faster RTs were generally observed for both associative and categorical priming (relative to an unrelated prime-target condition). At the short SOA, both associatively and categorically primed targets similarly elicited more positive going ERPs compared with unrelated targets in the N400 time range (N400 priming effect), suggesting a common initial mechanism mediating both forms of priming. By contrast, at the long SOA, a typical N400 priming effect was observed for associative priming only, whereas the corresponding effect for categorical priming was small and restricted to a left parietal site. This hitherto unreported interaction of relatedness, and SOA in the N400 suggests an initial fast spreading of activation to a wide range of related targets, which subsequently focuses to more closely related people at longer SOAs. This ability of ERPs to trace the neural dynamics of activation for different forms of prime/target relatedness can be exploited for testing different models of semantic priming.

Semantic Categories and Context in L2 Vocabulary Learning

This article extends recent findings that presenting semantically related vocabulary simultaneously inhibits learning. It does so by adding story contexts. Participants learned 32 new labels for known concepts from four different semantic categories in stories that were either semantically related (one category per story) or semantically unrelated (four categories per story). They then completed a semantic‐categorization task, followed by a stimulus‐match verification task in an eye‐tracker. Results suggest that there may be a slight learning advantage in the semantically unrelated condition. However, our findings are better interpreted in terms of how learning occurred and how vocabulary was processed afterward. Additionally, our results suggest that contextual support from the stories may have surmounted much of the disadvantage attributed to semantic relatedness.

Efeitos de priming semântico em tarefa de decisão lexical em crianças de 3ª série

No paradigma de priming semântico, mede-se a acurácia e velocidade de resposta ao estímulo-alvo, precedido por palavra semanticamente relacionada ou não relacionada (primes). Este trabalho apresenta um estudo pré-experimental de normas de associação semântica de palavras em 156 crianças e um estudo experimental, que avalia o efeito de priming semântico em 24 crianças em uma tarefa de decisão lexical. O experimento mostrou que as decisões lexicais para alvos reais foram significativamente mais lentas e menos precisas na condição prime não relacionado comparado à condição prime relacionado. Conclui-se que houve efeitos de priming semântico no reconhecimento visual de palavras em crianças, ou seja, o contexto semântico pré-ativou a representação da palavra alvo, facilitando a decisão lexical na condição de relação semântica.

Phase 1 Trial of Sorafenib and Everolimus In Patients with Lymphoma or Multiple Myeloma.

AbstractAbstract 2802 Background:Redundancy of pro-survival signaling pathways promotes survival and drug resistance in lymphoid and plasma cell malignancies. In particular, the PI3K-Akt and the MEK-ERK pathways have been shown to play an important role in the proliferation and survival of these malignant cells induced by various cytokines in the tumor microenvironment. Sorafenib, a Raf kinase and VEGF receptor inhibitor, and everolimus, an mTOR inhibitor, have synergistic cytotoxicity in myeloma and lymphoma cells due to inhibition of multiple signaling pathways. Methods:We designed a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to identify the maximum tolerated doses of the two drugs used in combination and the efficacy of the combination. Patients (Pts) with relapsed myeloma or lymphoma were eligible for enrollment. Pts were required to have an absolute neutrophil count ≥1500 × 10(6)/L, a platelet count ≥75,000, and a serum creatinine 21.5 mg/dL. The study utilized the classic 3+3 design. Extensive pharmacokinetic studies were performed to better delineate potential drug interactions. Results:Twenty-six pts were accrued from August 2007 to February 2009. Four pts discontinued sorafenib during cycle 1 for various reasons (2 patient refusal, 1 unrelated medical condition and 1 physician discretion) and were excluded from MTD determination. An additional pt did not have measurable disease and was ineligible, leaving 19 pts with lymphoma (including 6 with Hodgkin lymphoma) and 2 with myeloma for phase I analysis. The pts had a median age of 56 years (range, 22, 69) and were heavily pretreated with a median of 4 prior therapies (range, 1–10). Eighteen (86%) had received a prior stem cell transplant. Four dose limiting toxicities were seen across all dose levels (Table). These included grade 3 vomiting (level 1), grade 4 thrombocytopenia (level 2 and 3, one each) and grade 2 hand and foot rash leading to treatment delay (level 3). Overall, 13 pts experienced a grade 3 or 4 hematologic toxicity. Grade 3 or 4 anemia, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia occurred in 19%, 43%, and 38% of pts, respectively. Four pts have experienced a grade 3 non-hematologic toxicity; no grade 4 non-hematologic toxicities were seen. Grade 3 non-hematologic toxicities included hypokalemia, weight loss, vomiting, hand-foot skin reaction, fatigue, and elevated alkaline phosphatase. Dose level 1 (sorafenib 200 mg and everolimus 5 mg daily) was best tolerated and was selected for phase 2 evaluation.The ORR was 33% (7/21;95% CI: 15–57%, Table) with 3 pts at dose level 0 (2 PR, 1 CR), one at level 2 (1 PR) and three at level 3 (2 PR, 1 CR) responding. The responders included 5 pts with Hodgkin's disease and one each with an NK cell and T-cell lymphoma. Pts have received a median of 6 cycles (range: 1–19) of treatment. 16 pts have discontinued treatment due to disease progression (13 pts), non-resolution of cytopenias (1 pt), physician discretion (1 pt), and death on study due to lymphoma (1 pt). Disease progression has been seen in 16 pts; 9 pts have died. Median follow-up for pts still alive is 18.7 months (range: 11.5–29.4). 6 pts died from disease progression, one each due to sepsis unlikely related to treatment, cholecystitis, and unknown causes.Sorafenib is metabolized by the cytochrome P450 CYP3A enzyme and RAD-001 mainly by the CYP3A4 system in the liver, hence there is a potential for interactions. The detailed PK analyses performed as part of this trial showed a decrease in the RAD001 levels following initiation of sorafenib on day 8 of cycle 1 (Figure). [Display omitted] Conclusion:The combination of sorafenib and everolimus is safe at a recommended phase 2 dose of sorafenib 200 mg and everolimus 5 mg daily. There is no significant drug interaction seen. Activity has been observed, especially in the setting of Hodgkins Disease.Dose LevelSorafenib (mg/dose)RAD001 (mg/dose)Number of DLTsNumber of Responders0200 twice daily5 every other day1/62 PR, 1 CR1200 twice daily5 every day0/5No responders2400 twice daily5 every day1/51 PR3400 twice daily10 every day2/52 PR, 1 CR Disclosures:Kumar:Celgene: Consultancy, Research Funding; Millennium: Research Funding; Merck: Consultancy, Research Funding; Novartis: Research Funding; Genzyme: Consultancy, Research Funding; Cephalon: Research Funding. Off Label Use: Lenalidomide for treatment of newly diagnosed myeloma. Witzig:Novartis and Celgene: Patents & Royalties, Research Funding, Served on advisory boards with Novartis and Celgene – both uncompensated with compensation to Mayo Clinic.

Semantic and plausibility effects on preview benefit during eye fixations in Chinese reading

The boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) was used to examine whether high level information affects preview benefit during Chinese reading. In two experiments, readers read sentences with a 1-character target word while their eye movements were monitored. In Experiment 1, the semantic relatedness between the target word and the preview word was manipulated so that there were semantically related and unrelated preview words, both of which were not plausible in the sentence context. No significant differences between these two preview conditions were found, indicating no effect of semantic preview. In Experiment 2, we further examined semantic preview effects with plausible preview words. There were four types of previews: identical, related & plausible, unrelated & plausible, and unrelated & implausible. The results revealed a significant effect of plausibility as single fixation and gaze duration on the target region were shorter in the two plausible conditions than in the implausible condition. Moreover, there was some evidence for a semantic preview benefit as single fixation duration on the target region was shorter in the related & plausible condition than the unrelated & plausible condition. Implications of these results for processing of high level information during Chinese reading are discussed.