Word's Predictability Can Modulate Semantic Preview Effect in High-Constraint Sentences

Abstract

The processing of words in sentence reading is influenced by both information from sentential context (the effect of predictability) and information from previewing upcoming words (the preview effect), but how both effects interact during online reading is not clear. In this study, we tested the interaction of predictability effect and the preview effect in predicting reading processing. In the experiment, sentence constraint was controlled using all high-constraint sentences as materials. We manipulated both the predictability of the target word in the sentence and the semantic relationship between the preview word and the target word as predictors of the semantic preview effect. The results showed that the semantic preview effect was present only when the target word had low-predictability in the sentence but was not observed when the target word had high-predictability in the sentence. The results suggest that contextual information in reading can modulate the pre-activation of words and thus influence whether the preview word has a priming effect. The results of this study provide further evidence that reading comprehension involves an interactive system of processing multiple sources of information at multiple levels.

Keywords: contextual constraint; eye-tracking; predictability; preview; semantic.

FIGURE 1

Example of experimental material. In the example, “umbrella” was the target word setting in the experiment, and it was also a preview word under the identical preview condition. The word “rain” was a semantical preview word, which has a sematic association with the target word “umbrella.” The word “thorns” was an unrelated preview word, and there was no relationship between “thorns” and the target word “umbrella.” The target and preview words were embedded in the two kinds of high-constraint sentences with the target word either high-predictable (“Bring an umbrella when you go out on a cloudy day……”) or low-predictable (“Bring an umbrella when you go out to take pictures…….” Note that this is still a high-constraint sentence with the high-predictable word “camera”) in the sentence. In the experiment, when the readers’ fixation located before the boundary, one of the three kinds of preview words “umbrella” or “rain” or “thorns” was presented in the target position. When the reader’s fixation across the boundary, the preview word in the target position immediately turns to the target word “umbrella.”