Authors
Joshua Snell, Jan Theeuwes
Publication date
2020/8/1
Journal
Journal of Memory and Language
Volume
113
Pages
104127
Publisher
Academic Press
Description
A wealth of research attests to the key role of statistical learning in the acquisition and execution of skilled reading. Little is known, however, about how regularities impact the way readers navigate through their linguistic environment. While previous studies have mostly gauged the recognition of single words, oculomotor processes are likely influenced by multiple words at once. With these premises in mind, we performed analyses on the GECO book reading corpus to determine whether repeatedly encountering a given sentence structure improves oculomotor control. In the reading materials we labeled structures on the basis of both low- and high-level properties: respectively word length combinations (e.g., a 2-letter word followed by a 6-letter word followed by a 4-letter word) and syntactic structures (e.g., an article followed by a noun followed by a verb). Our analyses show that repeatedly encountering a structure …
Total citations
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