Parafoveal preprocessing in reading revisited: Evidence from a novel preview manipulation.

Gagl, Benjamin; Hawelka, Stefan; Richlan, Fabio; Schuster, Sarah; Hutzler, Florian

doi:10.1037/a0034408

Cited by 30 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In addition, words with 20% or 40% noise added (i.e. 20% or 40% of pixels were displaced; for details see Gagl et al, 2014) were presented in blocks of 140 (70 fiveletter words and 70 nonwords).…”

Section: Materials Experimental Procedures and Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Orthographic Prediction Error as the basis for efficient Visual Word Recognition

Gagl

Sassenhagen

Haan

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Most current models assume that the perceptual and cognitive processes of visual word recognition and reading operate upon neuronally coded domain-general low-level visual representations -typically oriented line representations. We here demonstrate, consistent with neurophysiological theories of Bayesian-like predictive neural computations, that prior visual knowledge of words is utilized to 'explain away' redundant and highly expected parts of the visual percept. Subsequent processing stages, accordingly, operate upon an optimized representation of the visual input, the orthographic prediction error, highlighting only information relevant for word identification. We show that this informationally optimized representation is related to orthographic word characteristics, accounts for word recognition behavior, and is processed early in the visual processing stream, i.e., in occipital cortex and before 200 ms after word-onset. Based on these findings, we propose that prior visual-orthographic knowledge is used to optimize the representation of visually presented words, which in turn allows for highly efficient reading processes.

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Section: Materials Experimental Procedures and Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Orthographic Prediction Error as the basis for efficient Visual Word Recognition

Gagl

Sassenhagen

Haan

et al. 2018

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…Additionally, while the first fixation duration measure includes as much data as the gaze duration measure, this measure includes a mixture of single fixation durations and first fixation durations prior to a refixation (which tend to be shorter than single fixations), adding to the variability of the measure. Finally, the baseline condition in the present experiment was a word-preview; the available evidence suggests that had we used a random string of letters or degraded the letters in the preview that there would be a larger identity preview effect (Gagl, Hawelka, Richlan, Schuster, & Hutzler, 2014; Murray, Rayner, & Wakefield, 2013). …”

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confidence: 95%

Semantic preview benefit in reading English: The effect of initial letter capitalization.

Rayner¹,

Schotter²

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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A major controversy in reading research is whether semantic information is obtained from the word to the right of the currently fixated word (word n+1). While most evidence has been negative in English, semantic preview benefit has been observed for readers of Chinese and German. In the present experiment, we investigated whether the discrepancy between English and German may be due to a difference in visual properties of the orthography: the first letter of a noun is always capitalized in German, but is only occasionally capitalized in English. This visually salient property may draw greater attention to the word during parafoveal preview and thus increase preview benefit generally (and lead to a greater opportunity for semantic preview benefit). We used English target nouns that can either be capitalized (e.g., We went to the critically acclaimed Ballet of Paris while on vacation.) or not (e.g., We went to the critically acclaimed ballet that was showing in Paris.) and manipulated the capitalization of the preview accordingly, to determine if capitalization modulates preview benefit in English. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm was used with identical, semantically related, and unrelated previews. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found numerically larger preview benefits when the preview/target was capitalized than when it was lowercase. Crucially, semantic preview benefit was not observed when the preview/target word was not capitalized, but was observed when the preview/target word was capitalized.

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“…However, two recent lines of evidence suggest that this may be an oversimplification. The first is the finding that parafoveal masks that are used during invalid preview conditions may introduce processing costs (Gagl, Hawelka, Richlan, Schuster, & Hutzler, 2014;Hutzler et al, 2013;Kliegl, Hohenstein, Yan, & (Rayner, 1975) for studying N + 1 and N + 2 preview effects. The invisible boundary is represented by a red vertical line.…”

Section: Preview Benefit Versus N + 1 Preview Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, two recent lines of evidence suggest that this may be an oversimplification. The first is the finding that parafoveal masks that are used during invalid preview conditions may introduce processing costs (Gagl, Hawelka, Richlan, Schuster, & Hutzler, 2014;Hutzler et al, 2013; Kliegl, Hohenstein, Yan, & McDonald, 2013; Marx, Hawelka, Schuster, & Hutzler, 2015;Yan, Risse, Zhou, & Kliegl, 2012). This evidence suggests that the preview benefit effect is a combination of both preview benefits and preview costs.…”

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Parafoveal preview effects from word N + 1 and word N + 2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis

Vasilev

Angele

2016

Psychon Bull Rev

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The use of gaze-contingent display techniques to study reading has shown that readers attend not only the currently fixated word, but also the word to the right of the current fixation. However, a critical look at the literature shows that a number of questions cannot be readily answered from the available literature reviews on the topic. First, there is no consensus as to whether readers also attend the second word to the right of fixation. Second, it is not clear whether parafoveal processing is more efficient in languages such as Chinese. Third, it is not well understood whether the measured effects are confounded by the properties of the parafoveal mask. In the present study, we addressed these issues by performing a Bayesian metaanalysis of 93 experiments that used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, Cognitive Psychology, 7, 65-81. doi:10.1016/0010-028590005-5, 1975. We describe three main findings: (1) The advantage of previewing the second word to the right is modest in size and likely is not centered on zero; (2) Chinese readers do seem to make more efficient use of parafoveal processing, but this is mostly evident in gaze durations; and (3) there are interference effects associated with using different parafoveal masks that roughly increase when the mask is less word-like.Keywords Parafoveal processing . Reading . Preview benefit . Perceptual span . Eye movementsThe advance of eye-tracking technology has allowed an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the reading process unfolds in space and time. One of the advantages of this method is the possibility to precisely manipulate what participants see in real time while they are reading sentences on the screen. The use of such techniques has shown that readers not only process the currently fixated word, but that they also benefit from previewing the upcoming word in parafoveal vision (Rayner, 1998). This so-called preview benefit effect is measured as shorter fixation durations on a word for which correct preview information was available during the preceding fixation.The preview benefit effect is arguably one of the most robust and least controversial findings in the literature, and it has inspired many subsequent experiments as well as models of reading (Schotter, Angele, & Rayner, 2012). A particular issue highlighted by the preview benefit effect is the distinction between gaze location and the attentional focus during reading. Although the gaze location and attentional focus are usually identical in single-word recognition tasks, readers appear to routinely attend the upcoming word as well. Many experiments have been dedicated to determining exactly which properties of an upcoming word readers can process while they are still fixating on the preceding word. It has been shown that reader can preprocess the orthographic, phonological, morphological, and possibly semantic properties of the upcoming word (for a review, see Schotter et al., 2012).However, despite four decades of research on the topic, the size of this effect has not been system...

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Parafoveal preprocessing in reading revisited: Evidence from a novel preview manipulation.

Cited by 30 publications

References 22 publications

An Orthographic Prediction Error as the basis for efficient Visual Word Recognition

An Orthographic Prediction Error as the basis for efficient Visual Word Recognition

Semantic preview benefit in reading English: The effect of initial letter capitalization.

Parafoveal preview effects from word N + 1 and word N + 2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis

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