@article{ShuZhouYanetal.2011, author = {Shu, Hua and Zhou, Wei and Yan, Ming and Kliegl, Reinhold}, title = {Font size modulates saccade-target selection in Chinese reading}, series = {Attention, perception, \& psychophysics : AP\&P ; a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.}, volume = {73}, journal = {Attention, perception, \& psychophysics : AP\&P ; a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.}, number = {2}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {1943-3921}, doi = {10.3758/s13414-010-0029-y}, pages = {482 -- 490}, year = {2011}, abstract = {In alphabetic writing systems, saccade amplitude (a close correlate of reading speed) is independent of font size, presumably because an increase in the angular size of letters is compensated for by a decrease of visual acuity with eccentricity. We propose that this invariance may (also) be due to the presence of spaces between words, guiding the eyes across a large range of font sizes. Here, we test whether saccade amplitude is also invariant against manipulations of font size during reading Chinese, a character-based writing system without spaces as explicit word boundaries for saccade-target selection. In contrast to word-spaced alphabetic writing systems, saccade amplitude decreased significantly with increased font size, leading to an increase in the number of fixations at the beginning of words and in the number of refixations. These results are consistent with a model which assumes that word beginning (rather than word center) is the default saccade target if the length of the parafoveal word is not available.}, language = {en} } @article{YanRisseZhouetal.2012, author = {Yan, Ming and Risse, Sarah and Zhou, Xiaolin and Kliegl, Reinhold}, title = {Preview fixation duration modulates identical and semantic preview benefit in Chinese reading}, series = {Reading and writing : an interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {25}, journal = {Reading and writing : an interdisciplinary journal}, number = {5}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0922-4777}, doi = {10.1007/s11145-010-9274-7}, pages = {1093 -- 1111}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Semantic preview benefit from parafoveal words is critical for proposals of distributed lexical processing during reading. Semantic preview benefit has been demonstrated for Chinese reading with the boundary paradigm in which unrelated or semantically related previews of a target word N + 1 are replaced by the target word once the eyes cross an invisible boundary located after word N (Yan et al., 2009); for the target word in position N + 2, only identical compared to unrelated-word preview led to shorter fixation times on the target word (Yan et al., in press). A reanalysis of these data reveals that identical and semantic preview benefits depend on preview duration (i.e., the fixation duration on the preboundary word). Identical preview benefit from word N + 1 increased with preview duration. The identical preview benefit was also significant for N + 2, but did not significantly interact with preview duration. The previously reported semantic preview benefit from word N + 1 was mainly due to single- or first-fixation durations following short previews. We discuss implications for notions of serial attention shifts and parallel distributed processing of words during reading.}, language = {en} } @article{YanZhouShuetal.2012, author = {Yan, Ming and Zhou, Wei and Shu, Hua and Kliegl, Reinhold}, title = {Lexical and sublexical semantic preview benefits in chinese reading}, series = {Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition}, volume = {38}, journal = {Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition}, number = {4}, publisher = {American Psychological Association}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0278-7393}, doi = {10.1037/a0026935}, pages = {1069 -- 1075}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Semantic processing from parafoveal words is an elusive phenomenon in alphabetic languages, but it has been demonstrated only for a restricted set of noncompound Chinese characters. Using the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm, this experiment examined whether parafoveal lexical and sublexical semantic information was extracted from compound preview characters. Results generalized parafoveal semantic processing to this representative set of Chinese characters and extended the parafoveal processing to radical (sublexical) level semantic information extraction. Implications for notions of parafoveal information extraction during Chinese reading are discussed.}, language = {en} } @article{ZhouKlieglYan2013, author = {Zhou, Wei and Kliegl, Reinhold and Yan, Ming}, title = {A validation of parafoveal semantic information extraction in reading Chinese}, series = {Journal of research in reading : a journal of the United Kingdom Reading Association}, volume = {36}, journal = {Journal of research in reading : a journal of the United Kingdom Reading Association}, number = {2}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0141-0423}, doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9817.2013.01556.x}, pages = {S51 -- S63}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Parafoveal semantic processing has recently been well documented in reading Chinese sentences, presumably because of language-specific features. However, because of a large variation of fixation landing positions on pretarget words, some preview words actually were located in foveal vision when readers' eyes landed close to the end of the pretarget words. None of the previous studies has completely ruled out a possibility that the semantic preview effects might mainly arise from these foveally processed preview words. This case, whether previously observed positive evidence for parafoveal semantic processing can still hold, has been called into question. Using linear mixed models, we demonstrate in this study that semantic preview benefit from word N+1 decreased if fixation on pretarget word N was close to the preview. We argue that parafoveal semantic processing is not a consequence of foveally processed preview words.}, language = {en} } @article{WangZhouShuetal.2014, author = {Wang, Aiping and Zhou, Wei and Shu, Hua and Yan, Ming}, title = {Reading proficiency modulates parafoveal processing efficiency: Evidence from reading Chinese as a second language}, series = {Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics}, volume = {152}, journal = {Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0001-6918}, doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.07.010}, pages = {29 -- 33}, year = {2014}, abstract = {In the present study, we manipulated different types of information available in the parafovea during the reading of Chinese sentences and examined how native Korean readers who learned Chinese as a second language make use of the parafoveal information. Results clearly indicate that, only identical and orthographically similar previews facilitated processing of the target words when they were subsequently fixated. More critically, more parafoveal information was obtained by subjects with higher reading proficiency. These results suggest that, mainly low-level features of the parafoveal words are obtained by the non-native Chinese readers and less attentional resources are available for the readers with lower reading proficiency, thereby causing a reduction of the perceptual span.}, language = {en} } @article{PanYanLaubrocketal.2014, author = {Pan, Jinger and Yan, Ming and Laubrock, Jochen and Shu, Hua and Kliegl, Reinhold}, title = {Saccade-target selection of dyslexic children when reading Chinese}, series = {Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision.}, volume = {97}, journal = {Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision.}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0042-6989}, doi = {10.1016/j.visres.2014.01.014}, pages = {24 -- 30}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This study investigates the eye movements of dyslexic children and their age-matched controls when reading Chinese. Dyslexic children exhibited more and longer fixations than age-matched control children, and an increase of word length resulted in a greater increase in the number of fixations and gaze durations for the dyslexic than for the control readers. The report focuses on the finding that there was a significant difference between the two groups in the fixation landing position as a function of word length in single-fixation cases, while there was no such difference in the initial fixation of multi-fixation cases. We also found that both groups had longer incoming saccade amplitudes while the launch sites were closer to the word in single fixation cases than in multi-fixation cases. Our results suggest that dyslexic children's inefficient lexical processing, in combination with the absence of orthographic word boundaries in Chinese, leads them to select saccade targets at the beginning of words conservatively. These findings provide further evidence for parafoveal word segmentation during reading of Chinese sentences.}, language = {en} } @article{YanLuoInhoff2014, author = {Yan, Ming and Luo, Yingyi and Inhoff, Albrecht W.}, title = {Syllable articulation influences foveal and parafoveal processing of words during the silent reading of Chinese sentences}, series = {Journal of memory and language}, volume = {75}, journal = {Journal of memory and language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2014.05.007}, pages = {93 -- 103}, year = {2014}, abstract = {The current study examined effects of syllable articulation on eye movements during the silent reading of Chinese sentences, which contained two types of two-character target words whose second characters were subject to dialect-specific variation. In one condition the second syllable was articulated with a neutral tone for northern-dialect Chinese speakers and with a full tone for southern-dialect Chinese speakers (neutral-tone target words) and in the other condition the second syllable was articulated with a full tone irrespective of readers' dialect type (full-tone target words). Native speakers of northern and southern Chinese dialects were recruited in Experiment 1 to examine the effect of dialect-specific articulation on silent reading. Recordings of their eye movements revealed shorter viewing durations for neutral- than for full-tone target words only for speakers of northern but not for southern dialects, indicating that dialect-specific articulation of syllabic tone influenced visual word recognition. Experiment 2 replicated the syllabic tone effect for speakers of northern dialects, and the use of gaze-contingent display changes further revealed that these readers processed an upcoming parafoveal word less effectively when a neutral- than when a full-tone target was fixated. Shorter viewing duration for neutral-tone words thus cannot be attributed to their easier lexical processing; instead, tonal effects appear to reflect Chinese readers' simulated articulation of to-be-recognized words during silent reading. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{YanSommer2015, author = {Yan, Ming and Sommer, Werner}, title = {Parafoveal-on-Foveal Effects of Emotional Word Semantics in Reading Chinese Sentences: Evidence From Eye Movements}, series = {Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition}, volume = {41}, journal = {Journal of experimental psychology : Learning, memory, and cognition}, number = {4}, publisher = {American Psychological Association}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0278-7393}, doi = {10.1037/xlm0000095}, pages = {1237 -- 1243}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Despite the well-known influence of emotional meaning on cognition, relatively less is known about its effects on reading behavior. We investigated whether fixation behavior during the reading of Chinese sentences is influenced by emotional word meaning in the parafovea. Two-character target words embedded into the same sentence frames provided emotionally positive, negative, or neutral contents. Fixation durations on neutral pretarget words were prolonged for positive parafoveal words and for highly frequent negative parafoveal words. In addition, fixation durations on foveal emotional words were shorter than those on neutral words. We also found that the role of emotional words varied as a function of their valence during foveal and parafoveal processing. These findings suggest a processing advantage for emotional words relative to emotionally neutral stimuli in foveal and parafoveal vision. We discuss implications for the notion of attention attraction due to emotional content.}, language = {en} } @article{Yan2015, author = {Yan, Ming}, title = {Visually complex foveal words increase the amount of parafoveal information acquired}, series = {Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision.}, volume = {111}, journal = {Vision research : an international journal for functional aspects of vision.}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0042-6989}, doi = {10.1016/j.visres.2015.03.025}, pages = {91 -- 96}, year = {2015}, abstract = {This study investigates the effect of foveal load (i.e., processing difficulty of currently fixated words) on parafoveal information processing. Contrary to the commonly accepted view that high foveal load leads to reduced parafoveal processing efficiency, results of the present study showed that increasing foveal visual (but not linguistic) processing load actually increased the amount of parafoveal information acquired, presumably due to the fact that longer fixation duration on the pretarget word provided more time for parafoveal processing of the target word. It is therefore proposed in the present study that foveal linguistic processing load is not the only factor that determines parafoveal processing; preview time (afforded by foveal word visual processing load) may jointly influence parafoveal processing. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{PanShuWangetal.2015, author = {Pan, Jinger and Shu, Hua and Wang, Yuling and Yan, Ming}, title = {Parafoveal activation of sign translation previews among deaf readers during the reading of Chinese sentences}, series = {Memory \& cognition}, volume = {43}, journal = {Memory \& cognition}, number = {6}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {0090-502X}, doi = {10.3758/s13421-015-0511-9}, pages = {964 -- 972}, year = {2015}, abstract = {In the present study, we manipulated the different types of information available in the parafovea during the reading of Chinese sentences and examined whether deaf readers could activate sign translations of Chinese words during reading. The main finding was that, as compared to unrelated previews, the deaf readers had longer fixation durations on the target words when sign-phonologically related preview words were presented; this preview cost effect due to sign-phonological relatedness was absent for reading-level-matched hearing individuals. These results indicate that Chinese deaf readers activate sign language translations of parafoveal words during reading. We discuss the implications for notions of parafoveal processing in reading.}, language = {en} }