Eye Movement On Global Predictability And Local Predictability In Chinese Reading

The present study used eye tracking technology to probe whether there is the local predictability effect and the relationship between global predictability and local predictability in Chinese normal reading.Many studies have shown that predictability can affect readers’ reading processing,but the traditional definition of predictability is based on the global predictability.While Fitzsimmons and Drieghe(2013)believed that there was local predictability that predictability from the previous word of the target word.But there is still controversy about whether there is the local predictability effect and the relationship between global predictability and local predictability.In Chinese,according to Chou et al.(2014),classifier can be divided into two categories: high constraint classifier which could only be used for limited nouns,and thus constraint the possible nouns could be followed(such as“艘”sou3 only for boat);and low constraint classifier which could be used for a lot of nouns(such as “些”xie1 for boat,person,tool,fruit,etc.).Therefore,classifier provides us a very good chance to study the local predictability effect meanwhile it will not change the meaning of context.Experiment 1a adopted three-level within subject design: high global predictability,high local predictability,and neutral conditions.The target nouns were the same for three conditions.The predictability of target nouns were high or low for high global predictability and neutral conditions respectively by changing the context before the target meanwhile minimized the differences.The only difference between high global predictability and high local predictability condition was that a numeral+classifier word was added before the target noun in the high local predictability context,consequently,any reading differences observed can be attributed to the effect of classifier.The results show that fixation duration was longer for neutral conditions than high global predictability and high local predictability,however,there were no differences between global predictability and high local predictability.And results also show that high local predictability skipped more often than neutral condition.In post-target region,the results found that local predictability read faster than neutral condition.There might be a larger local predictability effect.The stronger local predictability effect shown in Experiment 1a may be due to the difference in the position of the target word between the neutral condition and the high local predictability condition.The high local predictability condition is more right than the position of the target word of the neutral condition.Position will affect the reader’s reading process.Experiment 1b was conduct to exclude the influence of the different position of the target word in Experiment 1a,and the condition of low local predictability by changing the classifier in high local predictability was added in the study.Experiment 1a adopted four-level within subject design: high global predictability,low global predictability,high local predictability,and low local predictability.The results show that fixation duration was longer for neutral conditions than high global predictability and high local predictability.The results also show that fixation duration was longer for low local predictability than high local predictability.Experiment 2 was conduct to explore the relationship between local and global predictability effect by independently manipulated global and local predictability in Chinese reading.The results showed that the main effect of global predictability effect that high global predictability read faster than low local predictability and local predictability effect that high local predictability read faster than low local predictability,but there was no interaction.Results suggested that local predictability originated from classifiers can influence the reader’s reading.Most importantly,global predictability and local predictability independent influence readers’ reading processing.The result provides an empirical basis for the construction of a more comprehensive reading model,and the construction of Chinese reading model.