Expectations on Hierarchical Scales of Discourse: Multifractality Predicts Both Short- and Long-Range Effects of Violating Gender Expectations in Text Reading

Abstract

Reader expectations form across hierarchical scales of discourse (e.g., from coarse to fine: genre, narrative, syntax). Cross-scale interactivity produces word reading times (RTs) with multifractal structure. After introducing multifractals, we test two hypotheses regarding their relevance to reader expectations: (1) multifractal evidence of cross-scale interactions from RTs preceding violation of expectations would interact with mean reading speed to predict RTs immediately after the expectation violation and (2) postsurprise RTs would exhibit stronger cross-scale interactions. Thirty-four adult participants read one of two 2,000-word stories that used gender stereotypes to suggest that an ambiguously named protagonist was male. However, the stories postponed gender information until word 1,000: male in one story and female in the other. For slower readers, cross-scale interactions accentuated postreveal slowing but also minimized subsequent pausing over 15 postreveal RTs. Surprise strengthened cross-scale interactions over all postsurprise RTs. These results suggest that multifractality may index anticipation across multiple scales of discourse.

Funding

C. B., H. B., E. E., and D. G. K.-S. acknowledge the generous support of Grinnell College's Mentored Advanced Project program.

Notes

¹ To further guard against sample size bias, we also computed bootstrap t statistics based on repeated resamplings of the surrogate W_MF values. The one-sample t statistics were statistically indistinguishable from the bootstrap t statistics, indicating that the one-sample t statistics sufficed.

² See a brief step-by-step example using an extremely small 32-measurement series that outlines the calculation of each bin proportion and mass (http://sites.google.com/site/foovian/DPD-15-00105Supp.pdf).

³ We thank reviewer J. G. Holden for sharing the observation that buffering processes in the computer registering key presses from a keyboard can result in artefactual differences in key-press latencies in the span of ± 7.5 ms. We would hope that our multifractal estimates were not reflective of such artefactual differences in key-press latencies. To address this concern, we compared our multifractal-spectra calculations for the measured RT series to multifractal-spectra calculations for a simulation of RT series with added noise to resemble the unsystematic variability dependent on key-press buffering. Specifically, this simulation consisted of the measured RT series plus a white-noise process as long as the measured series but having zero mean and SD of 7.5 ms. If the multifractal spectra calculations were contaminated by the 7.5-ms buffering, then we would have expected the multifractal spectra calculations to differ with and without the addition of the zero-mean, 7.5-ms SD. However, our simulation showed no evidence of a difference with or without the 7.5-ms SD noise. In both cases, the multifractal spectra showed a mean width of .149 and an SD of .068. Further, the multifractal spectra for the series with and without the simulated buffering correlated at r = .987.