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ABSTRACT
Previous research has failed to establish semantic parafoveal-on-foveal effects during reading. As an explanation, we theorise that sentence reading engages a sentence-level representation that prevents semantic parafoveal-foveal integration. Putting this account to the test, we examined parafoveal-foveal influences both in- and outside a sentence reading setting. Optimising chances of establishing parafoveal-on-foveal effects, we used translation-equivalent word pairs with French-English bilingual participants. Experiment 1 provided no evidence for semantic parafoveal-on-foveal integration during sentence reading, but some evidence that semantic information had been extracted in parallel from multiple words. Experiments 2 and 3 employed a flanker paradigm in which participants semantically categorised English foveal target words, while these were flanked by the French translation or an unrelated French word (stimulus on-time 170 ms). Performance was drastically better with translation flankers, suggesting that readers can integrate semantic information across multiple words when the task does not require a strict separation of higher-order information.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Margot Roisin and Svenja Krabbe for their help in conducting this research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 For more on the Zipf frequency scale, see Van Heuven, Mandera, Keuleers, and Brysbaert (Citation2014).
2 These behavioural patterns were not restricted to the target word: for instance, overall, 27% of the saccades were regressions in our study, whereas 10%–15% would be typical of normal reading behaviour (Rayner, Citation1998).
3 This prior research used vertically arranged flankers positioned above and below centrally located targets, and target and flankers remained on-screen until participants responded.