Semantic plausibility preferentially affects the semantic preview benefit in Chinese reading: evidence from an eye-movement study

Lijuan Zhang; Zhiwei Liu; Sainan Zhao; Jingxin Wang

doi:10.7717/peerj.15291

Semantic plausibility preferentially affects the semantic preview benefit in Chinese reading: evidence from an eye-movement study

PeerJ. 2023 May 3:11:e15291. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15291. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Lijuan Zhang¹, Zhiwei Liu², Sainan Zhao³, Jingxin Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
² School of Education and Psychology, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Zigong, Sichuan, China.
³ School of Education, Linyi University, Linyi, Shandong, China.

Abstract

Background: Numerous studies have confirmed that skilled readers can benefit from a semantically related preview word (i.e., semantic preview benefit, SPB), suggesting that readers can extract semantic information from the parafovea to achieve efficient reading. It is still under debate whether the occurrence of this benefit is because of the semantic association between the preview and target words or because of the contextual fit of the preview word in the sentence context.

Methods: Two independent factors, preview plausibility (preview plausible/implausible) and semantic relatedness (semantically related/unrelated), were manipulated, and we further strictly controlled for syntactic plausibility in the present study.

Results: The results showed that the first-pass reading times of the target words were significantly shorter in the plausible preview condition than in the implausible preview condition. However, the main effect of semantic relatedness was found only in the gaze duration measure.

Discussion: The pattern of results revealed that semantic plausibility affects the semantic preview benefit preferentially in Chinese reading, supporting the contextual fit account. Our findings have implications for a better understanding of parafoveal processing and provide empirical support for the eye-movement control model.

Keywords: Chinese reading; Eye-movement reading; Plausibility; Semantic preview benefit.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Asian People
China
East Asian People*
Eye Movements
Humans
Reading
Semantics*

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.21346200.v4

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32271119). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.