Semantic neighbourhood density effects in word identification during normal reading : evidence from eye movements
Eye movement studies (e.g., lexical ambiguity and semantic plausibility studies) suggesting that word meaning can influence lexical processing relied on contextual information. Therefore, these studies provide only a limited insight into whether the semantic characteristics of a fixated word can be accessed before the completion of its unique word identification. The present thesis investigated the effect of the semantic characteristics of a word in its lexical processing during normal reading. In particular, four experiments were carried out to examine the effects of semantic neighbourhood density (SND, defined by mean distance between a given word and all its co-occurrence neighbours falling within a specific threshold in semantic space, Shaoul & Westbury, 2010a) in normal reading. The findings indicated that the SND characteristics of the fixated word influenced the lexical processing of the fixated word itself and the subsequent words, as evident in early reading time measures associated with lexical processing. These results suggest that a wordâs semantic representation can be activated and can influence lexical processing before the completion of unique word identification during normal reading. The
al Farsi, Badriya
P Philology. Linguistics
Semantic neighbourhood density effects in word identification during normal reading : evidence from eye movements. Eye movement studies (e.g., lexical ambiguity and semantic plausibility studies) suggesting that word meaning can influence lexical processing relied on contextual information. Therefore, these studies provide only a limited insight into whether the semantic characteristics of a fixated word can be accessed before the completion of its unique word identification. The present thesis investigated the effect of the semantic characteristics of a word in its lexical processing during normal reading. In particular, four experiments were carried out to examine the effects of semantic neighbourhood density (SND, defined by mean distance between a given word and all its co-occurrence neighbours falling within a specific threshold in semantic space, Shaoul & Westbury, 2010a) in normal reading. The findings indicated that the SND characteristics of the fixated word influenced the lexical processing of the fixated word itself and the subsequent words, as evident in early reading time measures associated with lexical processing. These results suggest that a wordâs semantic representation can be activated and can influence lexical processing before the completion of unique word identification during normal reading. The
semantic neighbourhood density effect word identification normal reading evidence eye_movement eye_movement study lexical ambiguity semantic plausibility study suggest word_meaning influence_lexical processing rely contextual_information therefore study provide limited insight whether semantic characteristic word access completion unique word identification present investigated effect semantic characteristic word lexical_processing normal reading particular carry examine_effect semantic neighbourhood density define mean distance give word co_occurrence neighbour fall_within specific threshold semantic space normal reading finding indicate characteristic word influence_lexical processing word subsequent word evident early_reading time measure associate lexical_processing suggest word semantic_representation activate influence_lexical processing completion unique word identification normal reading