The effects of spaces on word segmentation in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements

Abstract

This paper studies the mechanisms behind the differential effects of inserting a space either before or after a two-character unit on information processing through the examination of eye movements in Chinese, a language where there is no word delimiters. A two-character unit in this study is either a word-preserving stimulus or a word-disrupting stimulus (i.e., nonword). The study aims for a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms for lexical processing that may underlie observed facilitory or inhibitory effects of the spacing conditions in sentence context. Results show that inserting a space after a word facilitates lexical processing, but inserting a space before a word does not. Inserting a space before and after a nonword, however, does not show these effects. These results indicate that the effects of spaces before and after words are mainly influenced by word segmentation mechanisms rather than landing position effects or other factors. What is already known about this topic• Prior studies have found that differential effects of inserting a space either before or after a two-character unit on information processing. However, the explanation for this finding is still unclear. What this paper adds• This paper indicates that the differential effects of spaces before and after words are mainly caused by word segmentation mechanisms rather than landing position effects or other factors.Implications for theory, policy, or practice• The present results are consistent with the assumptions of word segmentation and recognition model (Li, Rayner, & Cave, Cognitive Psychology, 2009). Furthermore, the implications for saccade target selection theories are also discussed.

The Trade-Off Between Format Familiarity and Word-Segmentation Facilitation in Chinese Reading

“…The primary task for readers of Chinese is to segment words from Chinese texts which do not contain inter-word spaces as an indicator of word segmentation. The characteristic of no inter-word spaces has been the subject of many studies focusing on the mechanism of word segmentation in Chinese reading ( Rayner, 1998 ; Bai et al, 2008 ; Bassetti, 2009 ; Li et al, 2009 , 2014 ; Cui et al, 2014 ; Zang et al, 2016 ; Ma, 2017 ; Liu and Lu, 2018 ; Ma and Zhuang, 2018 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ). Moreover, the reading direction is one of the significant characteristics among languages.…”

Rational Sentence Interpretation in Mandarin Chinese

“…In English, there are white spaces between words to indicate word boundaries, but there are no such spaces in written Mandarin. There have been numerous studies on how spacing affects Chinese reading (e.g., Bai, Yan, Liversedge, Zang, & Rayner, 2008;Hsu & Huang, 2000a, 2000bInhoff, Liu, Wang, & Fu, 1997;Liu & Li, 2014;Liu & Lu, 2018). These studies suggest that for native speakers, adding space between words does not affect reading, whereas adding space between characters affects reading.…”

The role of format familiarity and word frequency in Chinese reading

“…The basic unit of reading processing, whether in Chinese or English, is the word ( 3 ; 6 ; 7 ). For Chinese readers, the primary task while reading is word recognition ( 7 ; 8 ; 10 ; 16 ; 18 ; 37 ). The reader needs to segment the word from the text and recognize the whole word ( 10 ; 13 ; 17 ; 25 ; 27 ).…”

“…The basic unit of reading processing, whether in Chinese or English, is the word (Bai et al, 2008;Carrol & Conklin, 2014;Chen et al, 2021). For Chinese readers, the primary task while reading is word recognition (Chen et al, 2021;Fan & Reilly, 2020;Inhoff et al, 2000;Liang et al, 2017;Liu & Lu, 2018;Wang et al, 2018). The reader needs to segment the word from the text and recognize the whole word (Inhoff et al, 2000;Li et al, 2009; frequency difference between HF and LF words was reliably different.…”