Contrasting off‐line segmentation decisions with on‐line word segmentation during reading

Abstract

In two experiments, we investigated the correspondences between off‐line word segmentation and on‐line segmentation processing during Chinese reading. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to read sentences which contained critical four‐character strings, and then, they were required to segment the same sentences into words in a later off‐line word segmentation task. For each item, participants were split into 1‐word segmenters (who segmented four‐character strings as a single word) and 2‐word segmenters (who segmented four‐character strings as 2 two‐character words). Thus, we split participants into two groups (1‐word segmenters and 2‐word segmenters) according to their off‐line segmentation bias. The data analysis showed no reliable group effect on all the measures. In order to avoid the heterogeneity of participants and stimuli in Experiment 1, two groups of participants (1‐word segmenters and 2‐word segmenters) and three types of critical four‐character string (1‐word strings, ambiguous strings, and 2‐word strings) were identified in a norming study in Experiment 2. Participants were required to read sentences containing these critical strings. There was no reliable group effect in Experiment 2, as was the case in Experiment 1. However, in Experiment 2, participants spent less time and made fewer fixations on 1‐word strings compared to ambiguous and 2‐word strings. These results indicate that the off‐line word segmentation preferences do not necessarily reflect on‐line word segmentation processing during Chinese reading and that Chinese readers exhibit flexibility such that word, or multiple constituent, segmentation commitments are made on‐line.

Processing multiconstituent units: Preview effects during reading of Chinese words, idioms, and phrases.

“…It is very likely that the requirement to process three compared with two constituent characters led to the delayed and more substantive effects that were observed in Experiment 2 relative to Experiment 1. This suggestion aligns with arguments put forward by He et al (2021) and Zang et al (2018) who each showed reading time costs associated with processing an increased number of linguistic constituents in character strings that were otherwise comparable. Nonetheless, it is certainly the case that further research is required to better understand the time course of reading time effects (i.e., how they emerge, their extent, and when they terminate) over linguistic constituents of different types that may also differ in length during Chinese reading.…”

“…There are also no visual or lexical indicators to mark each word’s syntactic property, and word order is relatively free. Furthermore, there is sometimes ambiguity concerning the concept of a word in Chinese, and it is not straightforward for readers to discriminate words from other linguistic units such as phrases (e.g., Bai et al, 2008; He et al, 2021; Hoosain, 1992; Liu et al, 2013). Note that despite these characteristics, there is considerable evidence demonstrating that words in Chinese are psychologically real and play an important and fundamental role during reading (e.g., Bai et al, 2008; Li et al, 2013, 2014; see also Li et al, 2015; Li & Pollatsek, 2020; Zang et al, 2011 for reviews).…”

“…Any such demonstration would provide further independent support for the MCU hypothesis and would illustrate generality of effects across languages with markedly different orthographic characteristics. Beyond this, evidence for MCU-based processing might also offer a potentially valuable explanation of how processing might occur given significant inter-reader disagreement on word boundaries in Chinese (He et al, 2021).…”

“…In developing the MCU hypothesis, we aimed to offer an account that may provide a solution to the current serialism versus parallelism impasse (Zang, 2019). In addition, we felt that the hypothesis might lend itself well to issues intrinsic to many nonalphabetic languages such as Chinese with word boundary ambiguity (see He et al, 2021). The MCU hypothesis rests on a very simple idea, namely, that frequently used linguistic units composed of more than a single word may be represented, and therefore identified, lexically as single representations (e.g., Conklin & Schmitt, 2008, 2012Shaoul & Westbury, 2011;Siyanova, 2010;Siyanova-Chanturia et al, 2011;Titone & Connine, 1999;Wray, 2002;Wulff & Titone, 2014).…”

Examining semantic parafoveal-on-foveal effects using a Stroop boundary paradigm

“…Also, up to 90 % of Chinese characters are comprised of semantic (and phonetic) radicals, conveying meaning information about the characters (Hoosain, 1991;Zang, Liversedge, Bai, & Yan, 2011). Third, word boundary ambiguity is prevalent in Chinese (He et al, 2021), which may require readers to allocate more attention to the parafoveal characters for successful word segmentation and optimised saccadic targeting. All these characteristics may lead to aspects of semantic meaning being accessed efficiently from the parafovea (e.g., Yan, Richter, Shu, & Kliegl, 2009), which in turn might influence processing of the foveal word and result in possible lexical PoF effects for Chinese readers.…”