Eye-Fixation Patterns During Reading Confirm Theories of Language Comprehension

Eye-movement patterns during reading are consistent with proposition-byproposition models of speech comprehension. (1) Fixation times ore least offected by word length ot ends of clauses: this confirms the theory based on the study of speech comprehension that, at such points, attention is directed inward to text integration. (2) Fixotion time for words ot the end of clauses is longer for canonical sequences which conform to the pattern, “N-V-N=octoroctian-object”; this confirms the view that complete semantic integration of such sequences is routinely delayed until their completion. A two-variable model based on principles of exhoustive visual scorch ond speech comprehension accounts for 80% of the fixotion durotions in a sample parograph from Just and Carpenter (1980) and Thibodeou, Just ond Carpenter (1982). This comprehension-based model compares favorably with their models constructed within a production-system framework. This result clarifies the relotianship between reading and listening.

[1]  Alice F. Healy,et al.  Detection errors onthe andand: Evidence for reading units larger than the word , 1977, Memory & cognition.

[2]  Alice F. Healy,et al.  Proofreading errors on the word the: New evidence on reading units. , 1980 .

[3]  E. Matin.  Saccadic suppression: a review and an analysis. , 1974, Psychological bulletin.

[4]  K. Rayner.  Eye Guidance in Reading: Fixation Locations within Words , 1979, Perception.

[5]  Roger C. Schank,et al.  Conceptual dependency: A theory of natural language understanding , 1972 .

[6]  B. J. Davidson,et al.  19 – On Problems of Unconfounding Perceptual and Language Processes , 1983 .

[7]  T G Bever,et al.  Syntactic Structure Modifies Attention during Speech Perception and Recognition , 1969, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[8]  J. Hayes.  Cognition and the development of language , 1970 .

[9]  Marcel Adam Just,et al.  A Model of the Time Course and Content of Reading , 1982, Cogn. Sci..

[10]  M. Garrett,et al.  The interaction of perceptual processes and ambiguous sentences , 1973, Memory & cognition.

[11]  John R. Anderson.  Language, Memory, and Thought , 1976 .

[12]  M A Just,et al.  A theory of reading: from eye fixations to comprehension. , 1980, Psychological review.

[13]  Eleanor L. Kaplan,et al.  Eye-Voice Span (EVS) within Active and Passive Sentences , 1968, Language and speech.

[14]  D. Slobin,et al.  Children use canonical sentence schemas: A crosslinguistic study of word order and inflections , 1982, Cognition.

[15]  I. M. Schlesinger.  Sentence structure and the reading process. , 1968 .

[16]  K. Rayner,et al.  Making and correcting errors during sentence comprehension: Eye movements in the analysis of structurally ambiguous sentences , 1982, Cognitive Psychology.

[17]  Karl Haberlandt,et al.  A Word on Final Words. , 1983 .

[18]  Jill de Villiers,et al.  Development of the use of word order in comprehension , 1973 .

[19]  Susan R. Goldman,et al.  Discourse Memory and Reading Comprehension Skill. , 1976 .

[20]  S. Jay Samuels,et al.  Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading , 1974 .

[21]  H. Kucera,et al.  Computational analysis of present-day American English , 1967 .

[22]  M. Tinker,et al.  Recent studies of eye movements in reading. , 1958, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  D. Aaronson,et al.  Performance theories for sentence coding: Some quantitative evidence. , 1976 .

[24]  WILLIAM MARSLEN-WILSON,et al.  Processing structure of sentence perception , 1975, Nature.

[25]  Thomas G. Bever,et al.  The underlying structures of sentences are the primary units of immediate speech processing , 1969 .

[26]  Roger C. Schank,et al.  Scripts, plans, goals and understanding: an inquiry into human knowledge structures , 1978 .

[27]  Janet D. Fodor,et al.  The sausage machine: A new two-stage parsing model , 1978, Cognition.

[28]  William A. Woods,et al.  Computational Linguistics Transition Network Grammars for Natural Language Analysis , 2022 .

[29]  J. Kimball.  Seven principles of surface structure parsing in natural language , 1973 .

[30]  Michael P Maratsos,et al.  Children who get worse at understanding the passive: A replication of Bever , 1974 .

[31]  Doris Aaronson,et al.  Performance theories for sentence coding: Some quantitative models , 1977 .

[32]  J. Fodor.  The Modularity of mind. An essay on faculty psychology , 1986 .

[33]  D. Mitchell,et al.  The Effects of Context and Content on Immediate Processing in Reading , 1978 .

[34]  P. Rabbit.  Human information processing , 1977, Nature.

[35]  T. Bever,et al.  Natural units of representation interact during sentence comprehension , 1982 .

[36]  B. J. Davidson,et al.  Regression analyses as a tool for studying reading processes: Comment on Just and Carpenters eye fixation theory , 1982, Memory & cognition.

[37]  G. T. Buswell.  How adults read. , 1937 .

[38]  Harry Levin,et al.  SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND THE EYE-VOICE SPAN. STUDIES IN ORAL READING, IX. PRELIMINARY DRAFT. , 1966 .

[39]  T G Bever,et al.  Detection of a nonlinguistic stimulus is poorest at the end of a clause , 1975, Journal of psycholinguistic research.