Phonological typicality influences sentence processing in predictive contexts: Reply to Staub, Grant, Clifton, and Rayner (2009).

In 2 separate self-paced reading experiments, Farmer, Christiansen, and Monaghan (2006) found that the degree to which a word's phonology is typical of other words in its lexical category influences online processing of nouns and verbs in predictive contexts. Staub, Grant, Clifton, and Rayner (2009) failed to find an effect of phonological typicality when they combined stimuli from the separate experiments into a single experiment. We replicated Staub et al.'s experiment and found that the combination of stimulus sets affects the predictiveness of the syntactic context; this reduces the phonological typicality effect as the experiment proceeds, although the phonological typicality effect was still evident early in the experiment. Although an ambiguous context may diminish sensitivity to the probabilistic relationship between the sound of a word and its lexical category, phonological typicality does influence online sentence processing during normal reading when the syntactic context is predictive of the lexical category of upcoming words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological typicality does not influence fixation durations in normal reading.

Using a word-by-word self-paced reading paradigm, T. A. Farmer, M. H. Christiansen, and P. Monaghan (2006) reported faster reading times for words that are phonologically typical for their syntactic category (i.e., noun or verb) than for words that are phonologically atypical. This result has been taken to suggest that language users are sensitive to subtle relationships between sound and syntactic function and that they make rapid use of this information in comprehension. The present article reports attempts to replicate this result using both eyetracking during normal reading (Experiment 1) and word-by-word self-paced reading (Experiment 2). No hint of a phonological typicality effect emerged on any reading-time measure in Experiment 1, nor did Experiment 2 replicate Farmer et al.’s finding from self-paced reading. Indeed, the differences between condition means were not consistently in the predicted direction, as phonologically atypical verbs were read more quickly than phonologically typical verbs, on most measures. Implications for research on visual word recognition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time course of word frequency and case alternation effects on fixation times in reading: Evidence for lexical control of eye movements.

Participants' eye movements were monitored while they read sentences in which high-frequency and low-frequency target words were presented either in normal font (e.g., account) or case alternated (e.g., aCcOuNt). The influence of the word frequency and case alternation manipulations on fixation times was examined. Although both manipulations had comparable effects on standard first-pass fixation measures, word frequency, but not case alternation was found to influence the duration of the first fixation in trials with multiple first-pass fixations. Assuming that lexical processing is more often incomplete at the termination of the first in multiple first-pass fixations than at the end of single first-pass fixations, the present findings provide strong evidence for an influence of word frequency on early lexical processing. Importantly, such a demonstration of a fast acting influence of a lexical variable on fixation times satisfies a critical prerequisite for establishing lexical control of eye movements in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention to one word at a time in reading is still a viable hypothesis: Rejoinder to Inhoff, Radach, and Eiter (2006).

A. W. Inhoff, R. Radach, and B. Eiter (see record 2006-22004-015) argue that the current version of the E-Z Reader model (A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, & K. Rayner, see record 2006-22004-014) cannot explain 2 key findings in their data, and as a result, the assumption of words being attended to 1 at a time is likely to be false. In this rejoinder, the authors argue that the E-Z Reader model can easily explain the 1st of the 2 phenomena and that the 2nd phenomenon is likely to be at least partially an artifact of changing displays during fixations. The authors also argue that their assumptions about attention shifting are not contrary to the attention literature and that the assumption that A. W. Inhoff et al. deem to be unrealistic (i.e., instantaneous shifting of attention) is easily modified within the architecture of the model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immediate and delayed effects of word frequency and word length on eye movements in reading: A reversed delayed effect of word length.

Three experiments examined the effects in sentence reading of varying the frequency and length of an adjective on (a) fixations on the adjective and (b) fixations on the following noun. The gaze duration on the adjective was longer for low frequency than for high frequency adjectives and longer for long adjectives than for short adjectives. This contrasted with the spillover effects: Gaze durations on the noun were longer when adjectives were low frequency but were actually shorter when the adjectives were long. The latter effect, which seems anomalous, can be explained by three mechanisms: (a) Fixations on the noun are less optimal after short adjectives because of less optimal targeting; (b) shorter adjectives are more difficult to process because they have more neighbors; and (c) prior fixations before skips are less advantageous places to extract parafoveal information. The viability of these hypotheses as explanations of this reverse length effect on the noun was examined in simulations using an updated version of the E-Z Reader model (A. Pollatsek, K. Reichle, & E. D. Rayner, 2006c; E. D. Reichle, A. Pollatsek, D. L. Fisher, & K. Rayner, 1998). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trajectories emerging from discrete versus continuous processing models in phonological competitor tasks: A commentary on Spivey, Grosjean, and Knoblich (2005).

M. J. Spivey, M. Grosjean, and G. Knoblich (see record 2005-11966-005) showed that in a phonological competitor task, participants' mouse cursor movements showed more curvature toward the competitor item when the competitor and target were phonologically similar than when the competitor and target were phonologically dissimilar. Spivey et al. interpreted this result as evidence for continuous cascading of information during the processing of spoken words. Here we show that the results of Spivey et al.need not be ascribed to continuous speech processing. Instead, their results can be ascribed to discrete processing of speech, provided one appeals to an already supported model of motor control that asserts that switching movements from 1 target to another relies on superposition of the 2nd movement onto the 1st. The latter process is a continuous cascade, a fact that indirectly strengthens the plausibility of continuous cascade models. However, the fact that we can simulate the results of Spivey et al.with a continuous motor output model and a discrete perceptual model shows that the implications of Spivey et al.'s experiment are less clear than these authors supposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serial processing is consistent with the time course of linguistic information extraction from consecutive words during eye fixations in reading: A response to Inhoff, Eiter, and Radach (2005).

A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach (see record 2005-13471-012) reported the results of 2 experiments that they claimed were problematic for serial attention models of eye movements in reading (such as the E-Z Reader model). In this reply, the authors demonstrate via argumentation and simulations that their data pose no serious problem for the E-Z Reader model or serial attention models in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal overlap in the linguistic processing of successive words in reading: Reply to Pollatsek, Reichle, and Rayner (2006a).

A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, and K. Rayner (see record 2006-22004-014) argue that the critical findings in A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach (see record 2005-13471-012) are in general agreement with core assumptions of sequential attention shift models if additional assumptions and facts are considered. The current authors critically discuss the hypothesized time line of processing and indicate that the success of Pollatsek et al.'s simulation is predicated on a gross underestimation of the pretarget word's viewing duration in Inhoff et al. and that the actual data are difficult to reconcile with the strictly serial attention shift assumption. The authors also discuss attention shifting and saccade programming assumptions in the E-Z Reader model and conclude that these are not in harmony with research in related domains of study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)