The Effect of Word's Visual Complexity Distribution on Saccade Targeting in Reading Chinese Sentences

• Main Authors: Molina, William Cruz, 孟威廉
• Other Authors: Tsai, Jie Li
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/2ux7q8

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 心理學研究所 === 103 === Previous studies about the visual and linguistic factors that influence the decision about where to move the eyes next in reading suggest a strong influence from low-level features; some studies also assume that this decision involves the computation of a saccade target before the oculomotor program is executed. In order to test whether the distribution of visual components within Chinese words influence the saccade targeting mechanism, we devised a new parameter that reflects the distribution of visual information along 2-character words’ area: the Visual Complexity Distribution (VCD) index. Three groups of words with a marked VCD index (i.e. Left-Bias, Right-Bias and Non-Bias) were identified and embedded in natural sentences; the eye movement of Chinese native speakers was recorded while they read this material in order to contrast first-pass duration, landing position and probability eye movement measures between conditions. The experimental effects were estimated through contrast between conditions using Linear Mixed Models, thus providing evidence about the VCD index’s influence on both, the decision about the when and where to move the eyes next. The analyses on initial fixation position indicate a rightwards shift when sending the eyes towards words with Right-Bias in comparison to the other conditions and shorter fixation durations when biased words are fixated in comparison to the Non-Bias words. Further analyses demonstrated that the results above can only be observed when specifying saccade targets from Chinese words. These results indicate that the luminance patterns within 2-character Chinese words, as reflected by the VCD index, can influence the specification of a saccade target when those words are about to be fixated as well as modulate the fovea load when those words are currently fixated.