The Influence of Discourse-Level Information on the Processing of Upcoming Words

在过去的几年里，简单的单词和句子上下文如何影响阅读过程中即将到来的单词的加工已经越来越多地被理解。然而，需要更多地了解这些相当局部的上下文影响是如何相互关联并与段落中的其他信息相结合的。本研究旨在阐明读者在阅读文本中即将到来的单词时如何将远段信息与局部句子信息结合起来。具体来说，该研究将研究当基于局部句子信息衍生出的特定单词的期望与段落中更远处嵌入的信息相矛盾时，单词阅读中可能发生的潜在变化。该研究将解决几个问题：首先，它将澄清段落信息是否连续地与局部信息相结合，或者在文本中即将到来的单词的处理中，来自远源的影响是否独立于局部源。其次，该研究将检验本地信息的可预测性在多大程度上影响远端信息在阅读中使用的方式。最后，研究将评估这些远距信息是在即将到来的单词被识别时产生影响，还是只有在单词的意义与文本的意义相结合时才会产生影响。从这项工作中获得的信息将有助于制定设计高度可读文本的准则。

In the past few years, the way in which simple word and sentence contexts influence the processing of upcoming words during reading has come increasingly to be understood. However, more needs to be understood about the way in which these fairly local context effects are interrelated and combined with other information from paragraphs. This research is designed to elucidate how readers combine distant paragraph information with local sentence information in reading upcoming words in text. Specifically, the research will examine potential changes that may occur in word reading when expectations for particular words derived on the basis of local sentence information are contradicted by information embedded more distantly in the paragraph. The research will address several points: First, it will clarify whether paragraph information is continuallly combined with local information or whether effects from distant sources operate independently from local sources in the processing of upcoming words in text. Second, the research will examine the degree to which the predictability of local information affects how that distant information is used in reading words. Last, the research will assess whether this distant information has its influence at the point at which the upcoming word is recognized or only later when the meaning of the word is integrated with the meaning of the text. The information gained from this work will be useful in the development of guidelines for designing highly readable texts.