语境预测性对中文高低阅读技能儿童预视加工的影响

The Effect of Contextual Predictability on Parafoveal Process for Highly-and Low-Skilled Developing Readers during Chinese Reading

采用呈现随注视变化的边界范式(boundary paradigm),操作目标词的语境预测性和预视类型,考察语境预测性效应在高、低阅读技能儿童词汇预视加工中的差异。结果发现,高阅读技能儿童从词汇副中央凹预视加工阶段开始利用词汇的语境预测性信息,而低阅读技能儿童则在加工晚期更加依赖语境预测性信息。结论表明,高、低阅读技能儿童对语境预测性的使用在发生时程上存在差异,符合预测编码框架理论对儿童语境预测性效应差异的解释。

Contextual predictability plays a crucial role in affecting lexical processing when reading character-based languages like Chinese. Words that are predictable from prior context are read more quickly and are less likely to be directly fixated than unpredictable words. Current models of eye movement control, such as E-Z Reader(e.g., Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, Rayner, 1998) and SWIFT(Engbert, Kliegl & Nuthmann, 2005) treat predictability as one of the two main linguistic variables determining the speed with which words can be identified during reading. Previous studies have shown that there is significant difference of contextual facilitation effect for children with different reading skills. However, the relationship between reading skills and contextual effect is still controversial. Lexical quality hypothesis and Predictive Coding Framework have different hypothesis for this issue. The former states that less-skilled readers rely more on sentential context due to their low-quality lexical representations, whereas the later states that higher-skilled will benefit more from sentential context at the early-stage of lexical processing because high reading skill enables automatic access to context-based inferences.Furthermore, numbers of evidences have showed that the occurrence of contextual predictability effects relies heavily on the lexical parafoveal process, and if valid parafoveal preview is absent, the effects of contextual predictability would decrease or disappear(Schotter et al., 2015;White, Rayner, & Liversedge, 2005). Thus, recent investigations of the impact of contextual predictability on parafoveal preview effects on eye movements between highly-skilled and low-skilled developing readers during sentence reading provides a new source of insight into this issue. In the current experiment, the boundary paradigm was used to investigate the parafoveal processing(Rayner, 1975). In this paradigm, the preview of a target word was manipulated to be correct or incorrect until the point of fixation crossed an invisible boundary preceding the preview. At this point the preview was replaced with the target word. Reduced fixation time on a word observed after a correct compared to an incorrect preview was known as preview benefit. Developing Chinese readers(32 skilled, 32 less-skilled) were selected from a pool of school children(aged 10-12 years) whose reading skills had been comprehensively assessed based on the tests of reading comprehension and speed-reading. All participants read sentences containing two-character target words for which predictability(higher or lower predictability)and preview type(identity or no-word preview) were manipulated. The results indicated that for highly-skilled readers, there was a preview effect in higher predictability sentences. However, this did not occur in lower predictability sentences. For low-skilled readers, the preview effect had no difference in two types of sentences. In addition, there were larger effects of contextual predictability on total reading time for less-skilled developing readers than that of higher-skilled developing readers. These suggested that there were fundamental differences in the influence of contextual predictability on lexical process for skilled and less-skilled developing Chinese readers. Specifically, the highly-skilled developing readers could use contextual predictability information to facilitate parafoveal processing, while low-skilled readers relied more on it during the later processing. The results were in line with the Predictive Coding Framework.