The Effects of Context and Content on Immediate Processing in Reading

1978 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. C. Mitchell ◽  
D. W. Green

Four experiments were conducted to examine the processes by which fluent readers comprehend prose. In each study the material was presented a few words at a time on an on-line visual display and the subject pressed a button to move on from one display to the next. The inter-reponse time was used as an index of local processing difficulty. The results of Experiment I indicated that readers pause considerably at the ends of clauses and sentences, and that they show no tendency to speed up across sentences. This pattern of results questions the role of prediction in reading. In Experiments II and III immediate processing was found to be unaffected by two types of syntactically-predictive clue and the effect of a third (semantic) clue was equivocal. Experiment IV replicated the results of Experiment I and showed, in addition, that pausing at the ends of clauses and sentences is a function of the difficulty of the content of the text. More detailed analyses showed that reading rate is modulated by the frequency of the words and by the number of characters in the display. Taken together the results suggest that reading rate is largely determined by the speed with which a reader can access the meanings of words and construct a representation of the text rather than by the speed with which they can formulate and test successive predictions about it.

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanako Mitsugi ◽  
Yasuhiro Shirai

AbstractUsing self-paced reading, this study investigated the role of head animacy in the processing of Japanese relative clauses (RCs). Second language (L2) learners whose first languages (L1) are English and Korean, and Japanese native speakers participated. The results showed that for native speakers, inanimate heads diminished the processing difficulty associated with object RCs. However, head animacy did not have an effect on L2 processing. The Korean group showed the subject-object asymmetry but no effect of head animacy. The English group did not demonstrate the effect of RC type or head animacy. The overall pattern of these results suggests that L2 learners of Japanese are not guided by syntactic and lexical-semantic information in the same way as Japanese native speakers. These findings are interpreted within the constraint-satisfaction models (MacDonald et al., 1994) and are further discussed in the light of the research concerning the transfer of L1 processing routines.


Author(s):  
E. Yu. Kulakova ◽  
G. M. Magomedova ◽  
A. A. Ivanov

The article investigates history of establishment and development of start-up unicorn-companies with capitalization over $ 1bn. The authors analyzed key types of unicorn-companies (unicorns, decacorns quinquagintacorns, gectacorns), identified their principle characteristics, showed criteria and factors of their success. The role of venture funds was studied, as they are major investors into promising business-projects. The article described trends of the 1-st half of 2020, the time of state restrictions and pandemic, such as distant work, IT entertainments, could services, on-line delivery, marketplaces, drop in business activity, which require clients' presence. It also showed the process of business-projects' passing from start-ups to companies with high capitalization. The authors pointed out that to create a successful company with capitalization of $ 1bn you do not need any special conditions, but there is certain logic concerning how the start-up can become unicorn-company. Basic points of this logic were provided. The authors substantiated the necessity of venture fund promotion among entrepreneurs and investors in order to speed up the start of start-ups and development of business-projects to the level of big companies.


1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 112-114
Author(s):  
L.H. Gilbert

The role of explicit informational feedback about semantic and syntactic errors was investigated in an experiment where university students were required to learn a miniature artificial language. A computer presented a series of simple geometric objects on a visual display screen, and alternately provided the proper description of the configuration (a model) or accepted and corrected the descriptions of the subject. The four experimental conditions were that (a) both semantic and syntactic errors were corrected; (b) only semantic; (c) only syntactic; (d) no errors were corrected. The results indicated that the subjects did not effectively utilize the feedback they received, and under all conditions learned the language from the model sentences which were presented.


1986 ◽  
Vol 30 (13) ◽  
pp. 1259-1263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristiina M. Valter

To investigate the ways in which visual cues affect the sensation of motion, the visual component was isolated by presenting stationary subjects with a moving visual field. This induced a sensation of vection or illusory self-rotation in the subjects. The effect of various visual variables such as the eccentricity of the visual display and the distance of the display from the plane of focus were investigated by varying the position of a stationary visual reference point. More vection was observed when this reference was held by the subject than when it was secured to ground, and when held in the peripheral visual field. Less vection was observed when the reference was held closer to the subject than the moving visual display. In addition to establishing the role of visual cues in the perception of motion, these results can be helpful in inducing or inhibiting the sensation of motion through visual displays.


2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 239-247
Author(s):  
Stefan Hegemann ◽  
Mark Shelhamer ◽  
Phillip D. Kramer ◽  
David S. Zee

The phase of the translational linear VOR (LVOR) can be adaptively modified by exposure to a visual-vestibular mismatch. We extend here our earlier work on LVOR phase adaptation, and discuss the role of the oculomotor neural integrator. Ten subjects were oscillated laterally at 0.5 Hz, 0.3 g peak acceleration, while sitting upright on a linear sled. LVOR was assessed before and after adaptation with subjects tracking the remembered location of a target at 1 m in the dark. Phase and gain were measured by fitting sine waves to the desaccaded eye movements, and comparing sled and eye position. To adapt LVOR phase, the subject viewed a computer-generated stereoscopic visual display, at a virtual distance of 1 m, that moved so as to require either a phase lead or a phase lag of 53 deg. Adaptation lasted 20 min, during which subjects were oscillated at 0.5 Hz/0.3 g. Four of five subjects produced an adaptive change in the lag condition (range 4–45 deg), and each of five produced a change in the lead condition (range 19–56 deg), as requested. Changes in drift on eccentric gaze suggest that the oculomotor velocity-to-position integrator may be involved in the phase changes.


2004 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred W. Mast ◽  
Charles M. Oman

The role of top-down processing on the horizontal-vertical line length illusion was examined by means of an ambiguous room with dual visual verticals. In one of the test conditions, the subjects were cued to one of the two verticals and were instructed to cognitively reassign the apparent vertical to the cued orientation. When they have mentally adjusted their perception, two lines in a plus sign configuration appeared and the subjects had to evaluate which line was longer. The results showed that the line length appeared longer when it was aligned with the direction of the vertical currently perceived by the subject. This study provides a demonstration that top-down processing influences lower level visual processing mechanisms. In another test condition, the subjects had all perceptual cues available and the influence was even stronger.


1978 ◽  
Vol 17 (04) ◽  
pp. 261-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Brault ◽  
G. Atlan ◽  
H. Lorino ◽  
A. Harf ◽  
A.-M. Lorino ◽  
...  

A system was built up around a minicomputer to process in real time pressure and flow signals collected during the course of three ventilatory mechanics tests: the calculation of the lung volume, the evaluation of the static lung compliance, the analysis of the forced expiratory performance. The subject is seated in an open body Plethysmograph, which allows for the instantaneous calculation of changes in the volume of his thorax and abdomen. The system is controlled through a graphics console which displays the sampled curves and the results of data processing. In addition, the signals can be stored on demand onto a magnetic tape so that the method can be tested and improved off line. The results obtained in healthy volunteers are highly reproducible. A close correspondence is found both in patients and volunteers between computer-derived and hand-calculated results. The computerized system has become a standard equipment of our Lung Function Department, where it allows for a rapid quantitative analysis of lung volumes, lung elasticity and bronchial airflow.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
M. Hermans

SummaryThe author presents his personal opinion inviting to discussion on the possible future role of psychiatrists. His view is based upon the many contacts with psychiatrists all over Europe, academicians and everyday professionals, as well as the familiarity with the literature. The list of papers referred to is based upon (1) the general interest concerning the subject when representing ideas also worded elsewhere, (2) the accessibility to psychiatrists and mental health professionals in Germany, (3) being costless downloadable for non-subscribers and (4) for some geographic aspects (e.g. Belgium, Spain, Sweden) and the latest scientific issues, addressing some authors directly.


2016 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Pier Giuseppe Rossi

The subject of alignment is not new to the world of education. Today however, it has come to mean different things and to have a heuristic value in education according to research in different areas, not least for neuroscience, and to attention to skills and to the alternation framework.This paper, after looking at the classic references that already attributed an important role to alignment in education processes, looks at the strategic role of alignment in the current context, outlining the shared construction processes and focusing on some of the ways in which this is put into effect.Alignment is part of a participatory, enactive approach that gives a central role to the interaction between teaching and learning, avoiding the limits of behaviourism, which has a greater bias towards teaching, and cognitivism/constructivism, which focus their attention on learning and in any case, on that which separates a teacher preparing the environment and a student working in it.


2014 ◽  
Vol 155 (22) ◽  
pp. 876-879
Author(s):  
András Schubert

The role of networks is swiftly increasing in the production and communication of scientific knowledge. Network aspects have, therefore, an ever growing importance in the analysis of the scientific enterprise, as well. The present paper demonstrates some techniques of studying the network of scientific journals on the subject of seeking the position of Orvosi Hetilap (Hungarian Medical Journal) in the international journal network. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(22), 876–879.


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