Orthographic learning and transfer of complex words: Insights from eye tracking during reading and learning tasks

Orthographic learning is the topic of many recent studies about reading, but much is still unknown about conditions that affect orthographic learning and their influence on reading fluency development over time. This study investigated lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and relatively advanced readers of Dutch. Eye movements of 131 children in Grades 2 and 5 were monitored during an orthographic learning task. Children read sentences containing pseudowords or low-frequency real words that varied in number of exposures. We examined both offline learning outcomes (i.e., orthographic choice and spelling dictation) of target items and online gaze durations on target words. The results showed general effects of exposure, lexicality, and reading-skill level. Also, a two-way interaction was found between the number of exposures and lexicality when detailed orthographic representations were required, consistent with a larger overall effect of exposure on learning the spellings of pseudowords. Moreover, lexicality and reading-skill level were found to affect the learning rate across exposures based on a decrease in gaze durations, indicating a larger learning effect for pseudowords in Grade 5 children. Yet, further interactions between exposure and reading-skill level were not present, indicating largely similar learning curves for beginning and advanced readers. We concluded that the reading system of more advanced readers may cope somewhat better with words varying in lexicality, but is not more efficient than that of beginning readers in building up orthographic knowledge of specific words across repeated exposures. Keywords: Eye tracking, lexicality, literacy development, orthographic learning, reading fluency.

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Eye-tracking the effect of semantic decoding on orthographic learning in Chinese

10.31234/osf.io/ekxd6 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Luan Li ◽

Eva Marinus ◽

Anne Castles ◽

Lili Yu ◽

Hua-Chen Wang

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Native Speakers ◽

The Other ◽

Sentential Context ◽

Unknown Compound ◽

Semantic Learning ◽

Post Test ◽

Semantic Radical ◽

Test Outcomes ◽

Orthographic Learning

Most Chinese compound characters represent meaning explicitly and systematically via the semantic radical. Previous research has shown that readers can use the semantic radical to infer the meaning of unknown compound characters (i.e., semantic decoding). Yet it is unclear whether it influences reading in natural texts or facilitates orthographic learning. Across two eye-tracking experiments, we exposed adult native speakers (n= 25 and n=16) to sixteen pseudocharacters embedded in sentences. Half of the pseudocharacters contained semantic radicals related to the meaning conferred by the sentential context (i.e., transparent); the other half were unrelated (i.e., opaque). After reading, participants completed written cloze, orthographic decision and definition production tasks. In both experiments, eye-tracking results showed a reduction in fixation times and regressions over the five exposures for the pseudocharacters. The post-test outcomes provided evidence for orthographic and semantic learning. There was no difference in eye-movement measures or in written cloze and orthographic decision between transparent and opaque items, but definition was better for the transparent pseudocharacters. We conclude that semantic decoding does not affect the reading of novel compound characters in natural texts or orthographic learning, but that it does seem to assist in learning semantics.

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Eye movements and morphological processing in reading

The Mental Lexicon ◽

10.1075/ml.6.1.04ber ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 83-109 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Raymond Bertram

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Eye Movement ◽

Time Course ◽

Morphological Processing ◽

Data Output ◽

Rich Data ◽

Complex Words ◽

Almost All ◽

Boundary Paradigm ◽

Natural Way

In this article, I will give an overview of eye tracking studies on morphological processing since 2005 and a few earlier studies. An earlier survey article of Pollatsek and Hyönä (2006) covers almost all studies until then, but a number of interesting articles have been left undiscussed or were published after 2005. Before that, I will discuss (a) the advantages of studying morphological processing by means of eye tracking; (b) methodological issues related to eye movement experiments on morphological processing; (c) the dependent measures one can extract from the eye movement record and how they can be used in assessing the time course of morphological processing; (d) the boundary paradigm that has been used in morphological processing studies. I will argue that eye tracking should be used more often in morphological processing research, since it allows for studying morphologically complex words in a natural way and at the same time its rich data output allows for deeper levels of analyses than some other methods do.

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An Eye-Tracking Study on Audiovisual Speech Perception Strategies Adopted by Normal-Hearing and Deaf Adults Under Different Language Familiarities

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-19-00223 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (7) ◽

pp. 2245-2254 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jianrong Wang ◽

Yumeng Zhu ◽

Yu Chen ◽

Abdilbar Mamat ◽

Mei Yu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Speech Perception ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Audiovisual Speech ◽

Audiovisual Speech Perception ◽

Allocation Pattern ◽

Deaf Adults ◽

Bilingual Speaker ◽

Primary Hypothesis ◽

Standard Chinese

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to explore the audiovisual speech perception strategies.80.23.47 adopted by normal-hearing and deaf people in processing familiar and unfamiliar languages. Our primary hypothesis was that they would adopt different perception strategies due to different sensory experiences at an early age, limitations of the physical device, and the developmental gap of language, and others. Method Thirty normal-hearing adults and 33 prelingually deaf adults participated in the study. They were asked to perform judgment and listening tasks while watching videos of a Uygur–Mandarin bilingual speaker in a familiar language (Standard Chinese) or an unfamiliar language (Modern Uygur) while their eye movements were recorded by eye-tracking technology. Results Task had a slight influence on the distribution of selective attention, whereas subject and language had significant influences. To be specific, the normal-hearing and the d10eaf participants mainly gazed at the speaker's eyes and mouth, respectively, in the experiment; moreover, while the normal-hearing participants had to stare longer at the speaker's mouth when they confronted with the unfamiliar language Modern Uygur, the deaf participant did not change their attention allocation pattern when perceiving the two languages. Conclusions Normal-hearing and deaf adults adopt different audiovisual speech perception strategies: Normal-hearing adults mainly look at the eyes, and deaf adults mainly look at the mouth. Additionally, language and task can also modulate the speech perception strategy.

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Activation and Persistence of Implicit Causality Information in Spoken Language Comprehension

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000002 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 5-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

Pirita Pyykkönen ◽

Juhani Järvikivi

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Spoken Language ◽

Visual World ◽

Implicit Causality ◽

Causality Information ◽

Spoken Language Comprehension

A visual world eye-tracking study investigated the activation and persistence of implicit causality information in spoken language comprehension. We showed that people infer the implicit causality of verbs as soon as they encounter such verbs in discourse, as is predicted by proponents of the immediate focusing account ( Greene & McKoon, 1995 ; Koornneef & Van Berkum, 2006 ; Van Berkum, Koornneef, Otten, & Nieuwland, 2007 ). Interestingly, we observed activation of implicit causality information even before people encountered the causal conjunction. However, while implicit causality information was persistent as the discourse unfolded, it did not have a privileged role as a focusing cue immediately at the ambiguous pronoun when people were resolving its antecedent. Instead, our study indicated that implicit causality does not affect all referents to the same extent, rather it interacts with other cues in the discourse, especially when one of the referents is already prominently in focus.

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