Abbott, Matthew J.; Angele, Bernhard; Ahn, Y. D.; Rayner, Keith (2015). Data from: Skipping syntactically illegal “the” previews: The role of predictability. In Keith Rayner Eye Movements in Reading Data Collection. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J01Z429S

Publication abstract:
Readers tend to skip words, particularly when they are short, frequent, or predictable. Angele and Rayner (2013) recently reported that readers are often unable to detect syntactic anomalies in parafoveal vision. In the present study, we manipulated target word predictability to assess whether contextual constraint modulates the-skipping behavior. The results provide further evidence that readers frequently skip the article the when infelicitous in context. Readers skipped predictable words more often than unpredictable words, even when the, which was syntactically illegal and unpredictable from the prior context, was presented as a parafoveal preview. The results of the experiment were simulated using E-Z Reader 10 by assuming that cloze probability can be dissociated from parafoveal visual input. It appears that when a short word is predictable in context, a decision to skip it can be made even if the information available parafoveally conflicts both visually and syntactically with those predictions.

Subject population:
Adults, student

• 2015

• 2015

• Abbott, Matthew J.
• Ahn, Y. Danbi
• Angele, Bernhard

• Rayner, Keith

Presentation software: EyeTrack_0_7_10h; Font: 14pt Courier New (11 horizontal pixels per character); Viewing distance: 60 cm; Screen resolution: 1024 x 768; Cut-off for short fixations: 80 ms; Cut-off for long fixations: 1000 ms; Fixations within n characters merged: 1 character; Software used for data processing: TimDrop.pl, jhook5m.pl, questions.pl,EyeDry, E-Z Reader 10

Microsoft

• Eye movements
• Eye-tracking
• Gaze-contingent display change
• Parafoveal processing
• Psychology
• Reading
• Word frequency
• Word predictability

• data

• English

Doi: https://doi.org/10.6075/J01Z429S

Primary associated publication

• Abbott, M.J., Angele, B., Ahn, Y.D., & Rayner, K. (2015). Skipping syntactically illegal “the” previews: The role of predictability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 1703-1714. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000142

Software

• EyeDry: https://blogs.umass.edu/eyelab/software/
• jhook5m.pl: https://sites.google.com/site/drtimothyjslattery/home/software
• Presentation Software: Eyetrack: https://blogs.umass.edu/eyelab/software/
• Questions.pl: https://sites.google.com/site/drtimothyjslattery/home/software
• TimDrop.pl: https://sites.google.com/site/drtimothyjslattery/home/software/

Described by

• Abbott, Matthew J. (2015). Guide to Keith Rayner Eye Movements in Reading Data Collection. In Keith Rayner Eye Movements in Reading Data Collection. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J0FF3QPR

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2023-06-01