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How important are linguistic factors in word skipping during reading?

How important are linguistic factors in word skipping during reading?
How important are linguistic factors in word skipping during reading?
The probability of skipping a word is influenced by its processing ease. For instance, a word that is predictable from the preceding context is skipped more often than an unpredictable word. A meta-analysis of studies examining this predictability effect reported effect sizes ranging from 0 to 13%, with an average of 8%. One study does not fit within this picture and reported 23% more skipping of Dutch pronouns in sentences in which the pronoun had no disambiguating value (e.g. ‘Mary was envious of Helen because she never looked so good’) than in sentences where it did have a disambiguating value (e.g. ‘Mary was envious of Albert because she never looked so good’). We re-examined this ambiguity in Dutch using a task that more closely resembles normal reading and observed only a 9% difference in skipping of the pronoun, bringing this linguistic effect in line with the other findings.
0007-1269
157-171
Drieghe, Denis
dfe41922-1cea-47f4-904b-26d5c9fe85ce
Desmet, Timothy
f7e7058a-6fa4-4acb-9b70-2f7ef3c1b8af
Brysbaert, Marc
dfe6bf7d-27f6-4546-82ca-375769276ad5
Drieghe, Denis
dfe41922-1cea-47f4-904b-26d5c9fe85ce
Desmet, Timothy
f7e7058a-6fa4-4acb-9b70-2f7ef3c1b8af
Brysbaert, Marc
dfe6bf7d-27f6-4546-82ca-375769276ad5

Drieghe, Denis, Desmet, Timothy and Brysbaert, Marc (2007) How important are linguistic factors in word skipping during reading? British Journal of Psychology, 98 (1), 157-171. (doi:10.1348/000712606X111258).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The probability of skipping a word is influenced by its processing ease. For instance, a word that is predictable from the preceding context is skipped more often than an unpredictable word. A meta-analysis of studies examining this predictability effect reported effect sizes ranging from 0 to 13%, with an average of 8%. One study does not fit within this picture and reported 23% more skipping of Dutch pronouns in sentences in which the pronoun had no disambiguating value (e.g. ‘Mary was envious of Helen because she never looked so good’) than in sentences where it did have a disambiguating value (e.g. ‘Mary was envious of Albert because she never looked so good’). We re-examined this ambiguity in Dutch using a task that more closely resembles normal reading and observed only a 9% difference in skipping of the pronoun, bringing this linguistic effect in line with the other findings.

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Published date: February 2007

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Local EPrints ID: 144833
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/144833
ISSN: 0007-1269
PURE UUID: 21d1dec8-4661-4238-be01-d5f91579389f
ORCID for Denis Drieghe: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9630-8410

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Date deposited: 03 Jun 2010 10:35
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:55

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Contributors

Author: Denis Drieghe ORCID iD
Author: Timothy Desmet
Author: Marc Brysbaert

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