词素位置概率在中文阅读中的作用:词汇判断和眼动研究

The role of character positional frequency on word recognition during Chinese reading:Lexical decision and eye movements studies

中文词切分的认知机制一直是心理语言学关注的焦点问题之一,研究发现中文读者可使用词素位置概率等语言学线索帮助词切分,而首、尾词素位置概率的重要程度以往研究观点并不一致。本研究通过词汇判断和眼动实验,考察中文读者对首、尾词素位置概率的利用情况。实验1a和1b采用词汇判断任务,考察在不同词频条件下词首与词尾词素位置概率对词汇识别的影响。在错误率和反应时指标上,高频词条件下词首与词尾词素位置概率效应不显著;低频词条件下词首词素位置概率效应显著,词尾词素位置概率效应不显著。实验2a和2b采用句子阅读任务,考察在自然阅读情境中被试对词素位置概率的运用。在凝视时间、回视路径时间和总注视时间指标上,低频词条件下词首词素位置概率效应显著,词尾词素位置概率效应不显著。高频词条件下词首与词尾词素位置概率效应均不显著。词汇判断和眼动证据共同表明,词素位置概率信息是中文读者重要的语言词切分线索,且与词尾词素位置概率相比,词首词素位置概率在词汇切分与识别过程中发挥的作用更大。同时,词素位置概率线索的运用会受到词频的影响,研究结果支持复合词加工的混合通达表征模型。

Understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying word segmentation has been an important focus for research on Chinese reading.Previous research shows that Chinese readers can identify words very efficiently even though the Chinese script does not use spaces between words or other visual cues to demarcate word boundaries.One possibility is that Chinese readers can make use of their knowledge of the positional frequency of characters(i.e.,how often they are used as the first or second character in words)to facilitate the word segmentation and recognition.Nevertheless,this potential role for position frequency remains controversial.Accordingly,with the present research we used the lexical decision task and eye movements during reading to investigate the use of positional frequency information about the first and second character of two-character words in both visual word recognition and reading.Four experiments were conducted to explore the effects of character positional frequency.In Experiments 1a and 1b,we manipulated both first and second character positional frequency(high vs.low)for target words that were of either high or low lexical frequency.Sixty college students were instructed to perform visual lexical decision tasks on words and pseudo-words.In Experiment 2a and 2b,we used measures of eye movements to investigate the use of character positional frequency in natural sentence reading.Sixty college students were required to read sentences while their eye movements were recorded using an EyeLink 1000 eye-tracker(sampling rate=1000 Hz).The results of Experiments 1a and 1b revealed an effect of first character positional frequency in both the accuracy and latency of lexical decisions only for target words with low lexical frequency,and no effect of second character positional frequency regardless of the lexical frequency of the target word.The results of Experiment 2a and 2b showed a clear effect of first character position frequency on reading times(gaze duration,regression path reading time,and total reading time)for target words of low lexical frequency only,and no effect of second character positional frequency for either high or low frequency target words.Participants made shorter response times and fixation duration in high character positional frequency condition than in low character positional frequency condition for target words with low lexical frequency.In sum,findings from both the lexical decision task and measures of eye movements in reading reveal a privileged role for first character positional frequency as a cue to word segmentation and recognition.However,this influence of character positional frequency depends on word frequency,and is only observed for words of lower lexical frequency.We argue that these findings support the augmented addressed morphology model theory of Chinese word recognition,and can help inform the development of a model of character positional processing model in Chinese reading.