Effects of syntactic context on eye movements during reading

• Authors: Lynn Huestegge , Diana Bocianski

Abstracts

EN

Previous research has demonstrated that properties of a currently fixated word and of adjacent words influence eye movement control in reading. In contrast to such local effects, little is known about global effects on eye movement control, for example global adjustments caused by processing difficulty of previous sentences. In the present study, participants read text passages in which voice (active vs. passive) and sentence structure (embedded vs. non-embedded) were manipulated. These passages were followed by identical target sentences. The results revealed effects of previous sentence structure on gaze durations in the target sentence, implying that syntactic properties of previously read sentences may lead to a global adjustment of eye movement control.

Keywords

EN

reading; eye movements; syntax; context; global effects; syntactic priming

• Publisher: Wyższa Szkoła Finansów i Zarządzania w Warszawie
• Journal: Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 6
• Pages: 79-87

Contributors

author

Lynn Huestegge

• Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

author

Diana Bocianski

• Institute of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10053-008-0078-0