The Effect of Plausibility on Eye Movements in Reading

Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences describing events in which an individual performed an action with an implement. The noun phrase arguments of the verbs in the sentences were such that when thematic assignment occurred at the critical target word, the sentence was pla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition memory, and cognition, 2004-11, Vol.30 (6), p.1290-1301
Main Authors: Rayner, Keith, Warren, Tessa, Juhasz, Barbara J, Liversedge, Simon P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Eye Movements
Eye Movements - physiology
Fixation, Ocular
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Language
Measures (Individuals)
Nouns
Production and perception of written language
Psychological Studies
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reading
Reading Skills
Semantics
Sentences
Time Factors
Uncertainty
Verbs
Word Recognition
Words (Phonetic Units)
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Summary:Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences describing events in which an individual performed an action with an implement. The noun phrase arguments of the verbs in the sentences were such that when thematic assignment occurred at the critical target word, the sentence was plausible (likely theme), implausible (unlikely theme), or anomalous (an inappropriate theme). Whereas the target word in the anomalous condition provided evidence of immediate disruption, the effect of the target word in the implausible condition was considerably delayed. The results thus indicate that when a word is anomalous, it has an immediate effect on eye movements, but that the effect of implausibility is not as immediate.
ISSN:0278-7393
1939-1285
DOI:10.1037/0278-7393.30.6.1290