Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-05-06
Abstract： Parafoveal pre-processing contributes to highly efficient reading for skilled readers (Ashby et al., 2012; Rayner, 2009). Research has demonstrated that high-skilled or fast readers extract more parafoveal information from a wider parafoveal region more efficiently compared to less-skilled or slow readers (e.g., Ashby et al., 2012; Chace et al., 2005; Rayner et al., 2010; Veldre & Andrews, 2015a). It is argued that individual differences in parafoveal preview are due to high-skilled or fast readers focusing less of their attention on foveal word processing than less-skilled or slow readers (Rayner, 1986; Veldre & Andrews, 2014). In other words, foveal processing difficulty might modulate an individual’s amount of parafoveal preview (Foveal Load Hypothesis, Henderson & Ferreira, 1990). However, few studies have provided evidence in support of this claim. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore whether and how foveal lexical processing load modulates parafoveal preview of readers with different reading speeds (a commonly used measurement of reading skill or reading proficiency). By using a three-minute reading comprehension task, 28 groups of fast and slow readers were selected from 300 participants (234 were valid) according to their reading speed in the current study. Participants were then asked to read sentences while their eye movements were recorded using an Eyelink 1000 eyetracker. Each experimental sentence contained a pre-target word that varied in lexical frequency to manipulate foveal processing load (low load: high frequency; high load: low frequency), and a target word manipulated for preview (identical or pseudo-character) within the boundary paradigm (Rayner 1975). Global analyses showed that, although fast readers had similar accuracy of reading comprehension to slow readers, they had shorter reading times, longer forward saccades, made less fixations and regressions, and had higher reading speeds compared to slow readers, indicating that our selection of fast and slow readers was highly effective. The pre-target word analyses showed that there was a main effect of word frequency on first-pass reading times, indicating an effective manipulation of foveal load. Additionally, there was an interactive effect between reading group and word frequency for first fixation and single fixation durations, showing that fast readers fixated high frequency pre-target words for less time than low frequency pre-target words, while slow readers made similar duration fixations on the high and low frequency pre-target words. However, the target word analyses did not show any three-way or two-way interactions for the first-pass reading times as well as for skipping probability. To be specific, the first-pass reading times were shorter at the target word with identical previews in relation to pseudocharacter previews (i.e. preview benefit effects); importantly, similar size effects occurred for both fast readers and slow readers. The findings in the present study suggest that lexical information from the currently fixated word can be extracted and can be used quickly for fast readers, while such information is used later for slow readers. This, however, does not result in more (or less) preview benefit for fast readers in relation to slow readers. In conclusion, foveal lexical processing does not modulate preview benefit for fast and slow readers, and the present results provide no support for the Foveal Load Hypothesis. Our findings of foveal load effects on parafoveal preview for fast and slow readers cannot be readily explained by current computational models (e.g., E-Z Reader model and SWIFT model).
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