The influence of parafoveal preview, character transposition, and word frequency on saccadic targeting in Chinese reading.

Abstract

This article reports the results of an eye-movement experiment which manipulated the frequency and parafoveal preview (i.e., nonword, transposed-character, or identical) of 2-character Chinese target words using a gaze-contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). The key findings were that progressive saccades were longer into high- than low-frequency target words, and that this word-frequency effect was more pronounced for identical than transposed previews. These findings suggest that Chinese readers adjust their saccade lengths in response to variables that influence the rate of parafoveal lexical processing. To examine the feasibility of this hypothesis, 2 computer simulations were completed that pitted this dynamic-adjustment account (Liu, Huang, Gao, & Reichle, 2017) against an account in which readers simply move their eyes to a small number of default saccade targets (e.g., the beginning or center of the upcoming word; Yan, Kliegl, Richter, Nuthmann, & Shu, 2010). The simulation results show that the dynamic-adjustment hypothesis more accurately describes our experimental findings using fewer parameters. The theoretical implications of the dynamic-adjustment account of saccadic targeting are discussed relevant to both models of eye-movement control in reading and modes of Chinese word identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).