Lexical Predictability Exerts Robust Effects on Fixation Duration, but not on Initial Landing Position During Reading
Abstract
An eye movement experiment was conducted to examine effects of local lexical predictability on fixation durations and fixation locations during sentence reading. In the high-predictability condition, a verb strongly constrained the lexical identity of the following word, while in the low-predictability condition the target word could not be predicted on the basis of the verb. The results showed that first fixation and gaze duration on the target noun were reliably shorter in the high-predictability than in the low-predictability condition. However, initial fixation location was not affected by lexical predictability. As regards eye guidance in reading, the present study indicates that local lexical predictability influences when decisions but not where the initial fixation lands in a word.
References
(2005). Eye movements of highly skilled and average readers: Differential effects of frequency and predictability. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A: Human Experimental Psychology, 58A, 1065–1086.
(1985). The interaction of contextual constraints and parafoveal visual information in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 17, 364–390.
(1996). The ‘center of gravity’ of words: Evidence for an effect of the word-initial letters. Vision Research, 36, 589–603.
(2001). Working memory and inferences: Evidence from eye fixations during reading. Memory, 9, 365–381.
(2003). Time course of elaborative inferences in reading as a function of prior vocabulary knowledge. Learning and Instruction, 13, 611–631.
(2002). Eye movements and processing stages in reading: Relative contribution of visual, lexical and contextual factors. Spanish Journal of Psychology, 5, 66–77.
(2001). Inferences about predictable events: Eye movements during reading. Psychological Research, 65, 158–169.
(2004). Word skipping in reading: On the interplay of linguistic and visual factors. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16, 79–103.
(2005). Eye movements and word skipping during reading revisited. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31, 954–959.
(1981). Contextual effects on word perception and eye movements during reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 641–655.
(2002). A dynamical model of saccade generation in reading based on spatially distributed lexical processing. Vision Research, 42, 621–636.
(2005). SWIFT: A dynamical model of saccade generation during reading. Psychological Review, 112, 777–813.
(2006). Eye movements as time-series random variables: A stochastic model of eye movement control in reading. Cognitive Systems Research, 7, 70–95.
(1999). A model of saccade generation based on parallel processing and competitive inhibition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 661–721.
(2005). Effects of contextual predictability and transitional probability on eye movements during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 862–877.
(1993). Effects of thematic and lexical priming on readers’ eye movements. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 34, 293–304.
(1995). Do irregular letter combinations attract readers’ attention? Evidence from fixation locations in words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21, 68–81.
(2004). Parafoveal pragmatics revisited. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16, 128–153.
(2004). Length, frequency, and predictability effects of words on eye movements in reading. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16, 262–284.
(2006). Tracking the mind during reading: The influence of past, present, and future words on fixation durations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135, 12–35.
(1999). WordMill, lexical search program. Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Turku.
(2000). The influence of semantic context on initial eye landing sites in words. Acta Psychologica, 104, 191–214.
(1993). The interaction of lexical and syntactic ambiguity. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 692–715.
(2003a). Eye movements reveal the on-line computation of lexical probabilities during reading. Psychological Science, 14, 648–652.
(2003b). Low-level predictive inference in reading: The influence of transitional probabilities on eye movements. Vision Research, 43, 1735–1751.
(1994). Lexical and message-level sentence context effects on fixation times in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 92–103.
(1990). Eye movement guidance in reading: The role of parafoveal letter and space information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 268–281.
(2005). Mislocated fixations during reading and the inverted optimal viewing position effect. Vision Research, 45, 2201–2217.
(1979). Saccade size control in reading: Evidence for the linguistic control hypothesis. Perception & Psychophysics, 25, 501–509.
(1982). Eye movement control in reading: The role of word boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 8, 817–833.
(2006). Tests of the E-Z Reader model: Exploring the interface between cognition and eye-movement control. Cognitive Psychology, 52, 1–56.
(1998). Determinants of fixation positions in words during reading. In , Eye guidance in reading and scene perception (pp. 77–100). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science.
(1979). Eye guidance in reading: Fixation locations within words. Perception, 8, 21–30.
(1998). Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 372–422.
(2004). The effects of frequency and predictability on eye fixations in reading: Implications for the E-Z Reader model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 30, 720–732.
(2001). Eye movement control in reading: Word predictability has little influence on initial landing positions in words. Vision Research, 41, 943–954.
(1986). Lexical complexity and fixation times in reading: Effects of word frequency, verb complexity, and lexical ambiguity. Memory & Cognition, 14, 191–201.
(1976). What guides a reader’s eye movements? Vision Research, 16, 829–837.
(1981). Eye movement control during reading: Evidence for direct control. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 33A, 351–373.
(1996). Eye movement control in reading: A comparison of two types of models. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 1188–1200.
(1996). Effects of contextual constraint on eye movements in reading: A further examination. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 504–509.
(1998). Toward a model of eye movement control in reading. Psychological Review, 105, 125–157.
(2003). The E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading: Comparisons to other models. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26, 445–476.
(2003). Foundations of an interactive activation model of eye movement control in reading. In , The mind’s eye: Cognitive and applied aspects of eye movements (pp. 429–455). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
(2006). Some empirical tests of an interactive activation model of eye movement control in reading. Cognitive Systems Research, 7, 34–55.
(1987). Local and global sources of contextual facilitation in reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 26, 322–340.
ContextMill. [Computer software]. General Linguistics, University of Turku.
(2000). Eye guidance and the saliency of word beginnings in reading text. In , Reading as a perceptual process (pp. 269–299). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
(2006). Foveal processing difficulty does not modulate non-foveal orthographic influences on fixation positions. Vision Research, 46, 426–437.
(2005). The influence of parafoveal word length and contextual constraint on fixation durations and word skipping in reading. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 466–471.
(2001). Eye movements during reading: A theory of saccade initiation times. Vision Research, 41, 3567–3585.
