Figure 1 - uploaded by Heather Winskel
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Example of a target word sentence with the three preview types presented to participants.
Source publication
Eye-movement tracking is a method that is used to study reading across different languages and is increasingly being employed. Eye movements provide a window into the underlying cognitive processes and mechanisms while a person is reading (Rayner, 1998). The majority of research investigating eye movements during reading has been conducted on Europ...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... of the morphological and orthographic target words were paired with three preview types: (1) identical (in which the preview and target words were identical), (2) affix (in which the affixed or pseudo-affixed component of the target word was previewed while a string of lower case x's replaced the word stem), and (3) control (in which a string of x's was previewed instead of the target word) (see Figure 1 for an example). ...
Citations
... The morphology of the upcoming word modulates parafoveal processing in Russian (Stoops & Christianson, 2017), Hebrew (Deutsch, Frost, Peleg, Pollatsek, and Rayner, 2003;Deutsch et al., 2005) and Korean (Kim et al., 2012). Yet, morphological composition of the upcoming word does not seem to affect parafoveal word processing in English (Kambe, 2004;Lima, 1987), Malay (Winskel and Salehuddin, 2014), or Finnish (Bertram and Hyöna (2003); Hyöna et al., 2004). Linguistic typology or writing system peculiarities alone cannot account for the observed differences in findings across languages. ...
The present study examined whether the inflectional morphology on Russian nouns is processed parafoveally in words longer than five characters while the eyes are fixated on the word. A modified boundary-change paradigm was used to examine parafoveal processing of nominal case markings within a currently fixated word n. The results elicited identical preview benefit for both first and second-pass measures on the post boundary and whole word regions. The morphologically related preview benefit (vs. nonword) was observed for first and second-pass measures as early as pre-boundary, post-boundary, and whole word regions. Additionally the morphologically related preview elicited cost (vs. identical) for first-pass measures on the post-boundary region, total time for the whole word, and regressions into the pre-boundary region. The contribution of the study is two-fold. First, this is the first study to use within-word boundary changes to study the parafoveal processing of inflectional morphology in Russian. Second, we provide additional evidence that inflectional morphology can be integrated parafoveally while reading a language with linear concatenative morphology.
... In contrast, derivational morphology in English (Kambe, 2004;Lima, 1987), and Malay (Winskel & Salehuddin, 2014), as well as compound nouns in Finnish (Bertram & Hyona, 2007;Hyöna, Bertram, & Pollatsek, 2004) modulate word identification only after the eyes fixate directly on the target words in these languages (foveal processing). Lima (1987) examined effects of partial preview where only a prefix was available (rexxxx) on the processing of a prefixed verb (remind) and pseudoprefixed verb (relish) in comparison with the full (identical) preview and did not find any significant difference between the partial availability of the prefix on prefixed or pseudoprefixed verbs. ...
... The author argued against morphological processing in the parafovea and attributed the source of facilitation obtained in the manipulated identical condition to the abstract letter code. Analogously, Winskel and Salehuddin (2014) found identical preview benefit for prefixed Malay nouns (pelari) and orthographic controls (pelita), while an affix (pexxxx) condition did not differ significantly from the control (xxxxxx). Finally, Bertram and Hyona (2007) showed that identical previews for Finnish compounds toimintakyky/toiminta-action; kykyability to/did not yield a preview benefit compared to a non-word preview in which the first three letters remained the same as the target word (toizxddidqyh). ...
The present study investigated whether inflectional morphology on Russian nouns is processed parafoveally during silent reading. The boundary-change paradigm [Rayner, K. (1975). The perceptual span and peripheral cues in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 65–81] was used to examine parafoveal processing of nominal case markings of Russian nouns. The results yielded preview cost for morphologically related preview in gaze duration (vs. an identical baseline) and in total time (TT) (vs. a non-word baseline) and preview benefit in regressions out of the target word. The contribution of the study is two-fold. First this is the first demonstration that bound nominal inflectional morphemes are processed parafoveally in a language with linear concatenated morphology (Russian). Second the observed preview effects suggest that parafoveal preview of a morphologically related word was processed fully in the parafovea and interfered with the integration of the target word into the syntactic structure of the sentence.
... For instance, the perceptual span has asymmetry to the right side for left-to-right reading of a Latin-script language (e.g., English). The perceptual span has a different asymmetry and a different size for right-to-left or vertically set texts (Nag and Perfetti, 2014;Rayner et al., 2014;Winskel and Salehuddin, 2014;Zhou, Kliegl, & Yan, 2013). ...
Understanding software engineers’ behaviour plays a vital role in the software development industry. It also provides helpful guidelines for teaching and learning. In this article, we conduct a study of the extrafoveal vision and its role in information processing. This is a new perspective on source code comprehension. Despite its major importance, the extrafoveal vision has been largely ignored by previous studies. The available research has been focused entirely on the foveal information processing and the gaze fixation position. In this work, we share the results of a gaze-contingent study of source code comprehension by expert (N = 12) and novice (N = 12) programmers in conditions of the restricted extrafoveal vision. The window-moving paradigm was employed to restrict the extrafoveal area of vision as participants comprehend two source code examples. The results indicate that the semantic preview allowed by the extrafoveal vision provides tangible benefits to expert programmers. When the experts could not use the semantic information from the extrafoveal area, their fixation duration increased to duration similar to novices. The experts’ performance dropped in the restricted-view mode, and they required more time to solve the tasks.
Eye-movement studies investigating second language (L2) word processing during reading are growing exponentially. However, what information L2 readers are able to process parafoveally is a less researched topic. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) allows researchers to manipulate visual information in an upcoming word during reading, tapping into real-time word processing without awareness. This article provides an overview of experimental studies of parafoveal word processing in reading, followed by a methodological review of the use of the boundary paradigm in L2 and bilingual research. We synthesize key methodological details (including preview type, eye-movement measures) and findings of 15 experiments that met our search criteria, concluding that the parafoveal preview effect observed when reading in the first language is also present in L2 reading. We propose how the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm can be used to study L2 lexical knowledge and factors that affect its development. Finally, we provide advice and instructions for designing and conducting boundary paradigm experiments.
Earlier assumptions against morphological processing of upcoming words while reading in linear concatenative morphology languages (e.g. English (Kambe, 2004; Lima, 1987); Finnish (Bertram & Hyona, 2007); and Malay (Winskel et al., 2014)) need to be re-evaluated due to the emerging evidence for such processing (e.g. Russian (Stoops & Christianson, 2017; 2019); Finnish (Hyona et al., 2021); English (Dann et al., 2021)). Crucially, the role of the syntactic context on the processing of morphology has been underappreciated cross-linguistically. Finally, attention seems to be augmented and results in deeper, automatic processing once the eyes fixate the target word n versus the preceding word n-1 (Cutter et al., 2014; Häikiö et al., 2010; Hyöna, et al., 2004; Juhasz et al., 2009). The present study examined how word n and word n+1 nominal case endings in the parafovea are employed during reading in Russian by manipulating syntactic predictability for the preview (identical-expected; related-unexpected).
Method: Two eye-tracking experiments with the invisible boundary paradigm (Fig2A-B) manipulated the nominal case endings in Russian in the upcoming word n+1 (E1) and within the word n (E2). The syntactic predictability of the preview for the target words in the sentence frames from Stoops & Christianson (S&C2017; 2019) were reversed. Identical previews had the expected case marker (94% Cloze test score) and the related -unexpected (0% Cloze test score) had an illicit second subject (Fig3). The target words here were located in the more restrictive syntactic position (VP-NP1-NP2/object 94%/target word (VSO)), compared to the less restricted position in S&C (2017; 2019; VP-NP1/subject 30% or object 70%/target word -NP2) (VSO)) identical – less expected subject; related – expected object, resulting in the VO if visible. 47 Russian native speakers read 120 (E1:60; E2:60) sentences balanced across 3 lists in a Latin Square design. 3 participants were removed per debriefing due to seeing preview change.
Hypothesis 1: no morphological processing (words vs nonwords): related & identical<nonword
Hypothesis 2: automatic morphological processing: related preview>nonword>identical for both word n & word n+1 as in S&C (2017; 2019)
Hypothesis 3: syntactic predictability and attentional modulation (deeper processing for word n)
word n+1: related preview & identical<nonword (same as Hypothesis 1 words vs nonword)
word n (morphosyntactic reorientation): related & nonword (0% Cloze test for both)>identical
Results:E1 Word n+1: support for Hypothesis 1 related & identical<nonword in total time (TT) = no evidence for morphological processing of ungrammatical related previews in the highly expected syntactic positions.
E2 Word n: support for Hypothesis 3 related & nonword>identical in TT = participants were sensitive to the case agreement violations only within the word in TT measure, which might indicate morphosyntactic re-parsing (re-orientation).
Discussion and Conclusions:Our study contributes to the increasing evidence that parafoveal attention allocation is context dependent rather than a rigid mechanism that behaves the same across the board. The same target words in the same syntactic frames with the same lexical items from S&C (2017; 2019 VSO) yielded different results in a more syntactically predictable (restrictive) position (VP-NP1-NP2=object 94% VSO). More cross-linguistic investigations are needed to understand the mechanisms by which attention and syntactic predictability modulate parafoveal processing in reading.
The use of gaze-contingent display techniques to study reading has shown that readers attend not only the currently fixated word, but also the word to the right of the current fixation. However, a critical look at the literature shows that a number of questions cannot be readily answered from the available literature reviews on the topic. First, there is no consensus as to whether readers also attend the second word to the right of fixation. Second, it is not clear whether parafoveal processing is more efficient in languages such as Chinese. Third, it is not well understood whether the measured effects are confounded by the properties of the parafoveal mask. In the present study, we addressed these issues by performing a Bayesian meta-analysis of 93 experiments that used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, Cognitive Psychology, 7, 65–81. doi:10.1016/0010-028590005-5, 1975). We describe three main findings: (1) The advantage of previewing the second word to the right is modest in size and likely is not centered on zero; (2) Chinese readers do seem to make more efficient use of parafoveal processing, but this is mostly evident in gaze durations; and (3) there are interference effects associated with using different parafoveal masks that roughly increase when the mask is less word-like.
