The Effect Of Blocked Lookback On Predictive Processing In Chinese Readin

During normal reading,readers constantly predict the content of the following text based on the context of the previous text,to improve the processing efficiency of the upcoming words.Regression is the eye-movement in the opposite direction to normal reading,which is an important part of eye movements in reading.Research on alphabetic language reading has shown that readers would reprocess the contextual information in the previous article during regression,to improve the understanding and contextual integration of the upcoming words.One of the important characteristics of Chinese writing system is that there is no clear word boundary information,which may prompt readers to rely more on the previous information for word segmentation and vocabulary recognition.However,it is still an unsolved problem how regression would influence the predictive processing during normal Chinese reading by affecting the integration processing.Therefore,the purpose of the current study is to investigate how Chinese readers make prediction processing under two different conditions: preventing regression and normal reading.The key problem to be solved is: if readers can’t get any information from the regression during reading,will they be more cautious or riskier in predictive processing?The prediction of the current research is that if regression affects readers’ predictive processing,readers will show bigger predictive effect under preventing regression condition than normal condition,and they would adjust reading strategies to cope with the processing load increasing reading situation.Experiment 1 is a 2(word predictive: high and low)×2(regression conditions: preventing regression and normal reading)within subject design.The preventing regression condition is a variant of the boundary paradigm that changes with the fixation point.An invisible boundary is set between every two words in the sentence.When the subjects move their eyes from left to right,the sentence appears normally.When the subjects regresses(the fixation point crosses the boundary of any word from right to left),everything before the boundary is masked by ※.Results:(1)The main effects of predictability and regression conditions were found in fixation duration measures;(2)The interaction between predictability and regression conditions is found in the landing position.Compared with normal reading conditions,readers will show significantly closer landing position on low-predictive target words than on high-predictive target words under the condition of preventing regression.Conclusion: In Experiment 1,the prevention of regression has obviously changed readers’ saccade target selection strategy,and they are more cautious in choosing the landing position.However,one of the important reasons of there is no interaction in the fixation duration measures might be the subjects are all college students with good reading ability.The current reading task in Experiment 1 is too simple for them.Therefore,in Experiment 2,reading comprehension questions were added at the end of all the experimental sentences to increase the difficulty of the task,and the accuracy of answering the questions was taken as a dependent variable to investigate the influence of preventing regression viewing on the efficiency of reading comprehension.Results:(1)In the sentence-level analysis,the regression rate was rising,the main effects of presentation condition were found in both the average fixation duration and the average forward saccadic amplitude.Under the condition of preventing regression,the average fixation time was longer,and the average saccade amplitude was shorter than normal condition.(2)In the target-level analysis,the main effects of prediction were found in first fixation duration,gaze duration,and total reading time;(3)The main effects of presentation were found in the accuracy rate,the first fixation duration,the total reading time and the regression path reading time and the regression out of rate.Under the condition of preventing regression,readers need longer reading time and present more cautious eye movement behavior patterns,But readers will flexibly adjust their eye movement strategies to adapt to this situation;(4)Finally,the interaction between predictability and presentation was found in the first fixation duration,skipping rate,and accuracy rate.Compared with normal reading condition,readers’ processing of low-predicted words shows significantly longer first fixation duration,high skipping rate and low accuracy rate under the condition of preventing regression.Conclusion:(1)There is a stable predictive effect in Chinese reading;(2)Regression is playing an important role in Chinese reading and preventing regression will significantly influence readers’ fixation and saccade behavior;(3)Under prevention regression condition,readers have a greater predictive effect than under normal presentation conditions,which suggests that readers have greater difficulty in processing low predictive words and need longer fixation duration.In this high cognitive load reading processing situation,readers would adopt more cautious reading strategies;(4)The difficulty of the reading tasks and individual differences,such as working memory ability,can influence readers’ processing.