Parafoveal Preview in Reading Burgess (1991) - Self-paced moving window reading time study - Varied window size from single to several words - Found an animacy effect only when people saw the disambiguating preposition “by” chunked together with the verb preceding it examined by the lawyer turned out … e.g., The evidence Ferreira & Clifton used a 40-character wide display - Sometimes the preposition was on the next line

Visual Acuity & Reading Get partial, increasingly degraded info quite far into periphery Acuity falls off faster in vertical than in horizontal direction

Eye-Movement-Contingent Moving Window in Eyetracking  Varying size of MW and nature of substituted characters provides evidence about what can be seen in periphery

Effects of Eye-Movement-Contingent Display Changes on Reading Previous Word

Effects of Eye-Movement-Contingent Display Changes on Reading Changed Word Changes “noticed” 1. NW w/ same first letters but diff shape in middle 2. NW w/ diff first letters but same shape 3. NW w/ same first letters & shape but diff letters at end 4. W w/ same shape & same first and last letters 5. No change

We created sentences with verbs at least 8 characters long - So we could analyze data contingent on whether or not people were likely to get preview of “by” while still fixating on verb The professor confronted by the student was not ready to … If last fix before “by” was here, trial coded as “Preview Unlikely” If last fix before “by” was here, trial coded as “Preview Likely” If last fix before “by” was here, trial not used

48 item sets with 4 versions each: The professor (who was) confronted by the student was not ready for an argument. The professor (had) confronted the student but was not ready for an argument. Subject Nouns All Animate – Want people biased toward main clause interpretations - So sentences are fairly hard, so there’s a better chance to see how much preview of “by” can help

Subjects 23 high-span subjects (>=3.5, 13 female) 20 low-span subjects (<=3.0, 10 female)

-People are differently abled when it comes to making rapid use of cues that can help in understanding hard sentences - In Trueswell et al. (1994), - We probably just happened to get a high proportion of high-span subjects - And something about the display &/or materials happened to make it easy to get preview of “by” - Presenting sentences one word at a time in ERP studies (among others) may yield unrepresentative results especially for highly skilled readers

Some Subsequent Studies Trueswell (1996) Manipulated verb’s frequency of use as Past Participle (often in passives) Lo PPart Verb The {room/thief} searched by the police {contained/had} the missing weapon. Hi PPart Verb The {alternatives/secretary} considered by the committee had some limitations. Results Animacy effects at by -phrase only for Hi PPart Verbs With Lo PPart Verb, slow even when Subj NP Inanimate With Hi PPart Verb & Inanimate Subj NP, no slower than control

Clifton et al. (2003) 2 experiments, both manipulated Animacy –Expt 1: Manipulated preview w/ contingent-display change –Expt 2: Manipulated memory span Claim results show Animacy doesn’t override Minimal Attachment –Though in both studies, Ambiguity Effect at by-phrase twice as large for Animates as for Inanimates in First-Pass Time! –Because “Regression-Path Duration” measure for by -phrase not different for Animate & Inanimate Also called “Right-Bounded Time”, “Go-Past Time” So instead of staying put longer with Animates, reread

Removing length effects from reading time measures Msec/character transformation –Assumes 1) Linear relationship between length and RT –Not too wrong 2) Zero-intercept –Wrong

Msec/char does not remove all length effects & it distorts relation between RT and length Especially for short regions Hypothetical Data

Trueswell et al. Expt 1 Data --- Linear fit ___ Nonlinear fit

The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy. against heckling the other team. Ambiguity arises because that is optional (in English) that ^ Temporary ambiguity about relationship between the Verb Is the noun A Direct Object (DO), or Subject of an Embedded Clause? Temporary Structural Ambiguity & the Noun after it

Verb Bias Verbs differ in how often they're used in particular sentence structures Compare The referees warned the spectators... with The bus driver worried the passengers... warned = Direct-Object Biased Verb worried = Clause-Biased Verb In English, a verb's most likely use guides choices about the initial interpretation of words following it

Plausibility of Noun as Direct Object Plausibility of particular Verb + Noun combinations varies Compare The referees warned the spectators... with The referees warned the game... In English, plausibility of a particular Verb + Noun combination sometimes guides initial interpretation

Example Sentences DO-Bias Verbs: ( e.g., warned, discovered, heard...) The referees warned the spectators Clause-Bias Verbs: ( e.g., worried, realized, suspected...) The bus driver worried the passengers EQ-bias Verbs: ( e.g., regretted, predicted, knew,...) The senior senator regretted the decision The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime. The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat. The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report. would probably get too rowdy. were starting to get annoyed. had ever been made public.

Stimulus Properties DO-Bias Verbs Clause-Bias Verbs Verb Bias DO-use72% 10% Clause-use13% 57% Noun Plausibility (Ratings on 1-7 scale) As DO Plausible N Implausible N As Clause Subject Plausible N Implausible N

Results of Eyetracking & Self-Paced Moving Window Studies DO-Bias Verbs: The referees warned the spectators would probably get too rowdy. The referees warned the game would probably go into overtime. Clause-Bias Verbs: The bus driver worried the passengers were starting to get annoyed. The bus driver worried the tires were starting to go flat. The senior senator regretted the reporter had ever seen the report. EQ-Bias Verbs: The senior senator regretted the decision had ever been made public. read slowly