Are there preferred viewing locations in Chinese reading? Evidence from eye-tracking and computer simulations.
Xinyi Xia, Yanping Liu, Lili Yu, Erik D. Reichle · Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition · 2022
(PVLs), such as the beginning or middle of upcoming words. In this article, we report two eye-movement experiments testing this hypothesis. In both experiments, participants read sentences comprising entirely two-character words, but either without (Experiment 1) or with (Experiment 2) explicit knowledge of this structure prior to their participation. The results of both experiments indicate the absence of PVLs. Simulations using implemented versions of a simple oculomotor-based hypothesis, two variants of the default-targeting hypothesis, and the hypothesis that saccade lengths are modulated as a function of estimated parafoveal-processing difficulty (i.e., dynamic-adjustment hypothesis) suggest that the latter provides the best account of saccadic-targeting during Chinese reading. These results are discussed in relation to broader issues of eye-movement control during reading and how models of such must be modified to provide more accurate accounts of the reading of Chinese and other languages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).