A Study On Word Skipping During Chinese Sentence Reading :Effects Of Word Length And Predictability

As the wide application of eye-movement technology, investigator have found that eye movement is conducted alternatively by fixation and saccades during the reading. The main task of fixations is to recognize words. However, the objective of saccades are needed to bring some other information into the fovea area to be able to further identify the word. If the reader want to identify the words they must look at each words, then the pattern of eye movement in reading will be much easy. However, the researchers have found that the readers in the process of reading is not fix words one by one in order. Although those words who ignored was skipped, but it had been recognized is actually.The present study is about word skipping during sentence reading. Skipping is the appearance that readers skip one or more words during reading. Probability is an most important index of eye movements in reading. By making clear of word skipping, we can comprehend lexical processing during reading. In this study, we are investigated in word skipping effected by contextual predictability and word length in Chinese reading.The experiment includes 30 participants. It is the completely randomized experimental design which is designed as 2(predictability: predictable context; unpredictable context) X 3(word length: two words; three words; four words).The present study employs Eyelink II eye tracker to examine the influence of sentence contextual predictability and the subjective familiarity Chinese two characters word on skipping during sentence reading.The result shows that:(1) When reading Chinese sentence, there are some differences in word skipping that effected by two words, three words and four words. This proves that independent eye control theory and control theory of language.(2) When reading Chinese sentence, there are some differences in word skipping that effected by predictability and unpredictability condition. This prove the views of eye movement model about word skipping that there are some context effects on word skipping.(3) When reading Chinese sentence, both word length and predictability can affect word skipping, and there has the interplay of the word length and predictability. The result supports interaction theory. It proves that high-level information influences the processing of low-level information. Both the information influence the reading processing together.