Understanding literacy effects on predictive processing in reading

了解读写能力对阅读预测处理的影响

• 批准号: 2740625
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2740625
• 关键词: Understanding; literacy; effects; predictive; processing

The ability to anticipate upcoming linguistic information is considered a hallmark of efficient language processing, rooted in the idea that the brain is a prediction engine that uses its knowledge of past experience to predict future events. This has been most widely investigated in the context of lexical prediction, where readers use their knowledge to predict the next word in sentence. For example, when reading a sentence beginning "The cold drink was served with a slice of...", readers might anticipate that "lemon" will be the next word, whereas "cucumber" might be less expected but possible. Substantial evidence shows that skilled readers benefit from predictive processing. This includes findings from eye movements studies showing that readers spend less time looking at more predictable words, and from electroencephalographic (EEG) studies of brain activity showing that more predictable words elicit smaller electrophysiological responses. However, surprisingly little research has examined predictive processing by less skilled readers, although this might shed light on the difficulties they experience.Accordingly, the aim of the proposed project is to more fully understand the role of literacy skills in supporting linguistic prediction. The project will take an experimental approach to this question, with some elements of the research to be conducted with undergraduate participants (as described below) and other elements conducted using a population of 16-18 years old secondary school students. The latter is an under-research participant group who should have mastered the mechanics of reading but likely to have more diverse literacy skills compared to an undergraduate student population. Work with this population will explore how the research might lead to impact in relation to the teaching of reading.It is fundamentally important to establish whether literacy skill influences the use of lexical prediction. This would involve using measures of eye measures to compare the speed with which words are recognised in highly-constraining versus less-constraining sentence contexts. To assess effects of literacy skill, we would recruit participants with a broad range of reading ability, which we would assess using standardised tests of vocabulary knowledge and comprehension ability (e.g., the Nelson-Denny reading test) and reading habits. This would allow us to determine whether less skilled readers use lexical prediction less, as well as which factors (vocabulary, comprehension ability, reading habits) predict the effects. Depending on the results, a follow-up experiment might examine whether there is a difference in the prediction cost for skilled versus less skilled readers. This refers to difficulty revising an incorrect prediction; for example when predicting that "lemon" is the next word and finding that "cucumber" is used instead. One possibility is that less skilled readers find it more difficult to revise an incorrect prediction.Research to date has focused on lexical prediction. However, there is growing interest in other forms of prediction, including syntactic prediction. This is where a reader uses their knowledge and linguistic cues to predict upcoming grammatical structure. Consider as an example a situation in which the word "either" appears within a sentence beginning "The customer decided to order either a pizza...". Here "either" provides a linguistic cue that the sentence has a structure in which one element ("a pizza") is to be contrasted with another. If this knowledge is used predictively, readers might expect the sentence to be continued by an "or"-phrase, such as "or a calzone", that provides a plausible contrast. Research will skilled readers provides evidence for this use of syntactic prediction by showing that less time is spent looking at the "or"-phrase when "either" is used. Therefore, a further research question would be whether less skilled readers also benefit from syntactic prediction.

预测即将到来的语言信息的能力被认为是高效语言处理的标志，其根源在于大脑是一个预测引擎，利用其过去经验的知识来预测未来事件。这在词汇预测的背景下得到了最广泛的研究，读者利用他们的知识来预测句子中的下一个单词。例如，当阅读一个句子开始“冷饮是用一片..“，读者可能会预期“lemon”将是下一个单词，而“cucumber”可能不那么预期，但也有可能。大量证据表明，熟练的读者受益于预测性处理。这包括眼球运动研究的结果，表明读者花更少的时间看更可预测的单词，以及脑电图（EEG）研究大脑活动的结果，表明更可预测的单词引起更小的电生理反应。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有研究探讨预测处理的技能较低的读者，虽然这可能揭示了困难，他们experienced.Accordingly，拟议的项目的目的是更充分地了解识字技能的作用，支持语言预测。该项目将对这一问题采取实验性办法，研究的某些部分将由大学生参与（如下所述），其他部分将由16至18岁的中学生参与。后者是一个正在研究的参与者群体，他们应该已经掌握了阅读的机制，但与本科生群体相比，他们可能拥有更多样化的识字技能。通过对这一人群的研究，我们将探索这项研究如何对阅读教学产生影响。确定识字技能是否会影响词汇预测的使用是至关重要的。这将涉及使用眼睛测量的措施，以比较在高度约束和较少约束的句子上下文中识别单词的速度。为了评估识字技能的影响，我们将招募具有广泛阅读能力的参与者，我们将使用词汇知识和理解能力的标准化测试（例如，Nelson-Denny阅读测试）和阅读习惯。这将使我们能够确定技能较低的读者是否较少使用词汇预测，以及哪些因素（词汇，理解能力，阅读习惯）预测效果。根据结果，后续实验可能会检查熟练读者与不熟练读者的预测成本是否存在差异。这是指很难修正一个不正确的预测;例如，当预测“柠檬”是下一个单词时，发现“黄瓜”被使用了。一种可能性是，阅读能力较差的读者发现修正错误的预测更加困难。然而，人们对其他形式的预测越来越感兴趣，包括句法预测。这是读者使用他们的知识和语言线索来预测即将到来的语法结构的地方。考虑一种情况，其中单词“either”出现在以“The customer decided to order either a pizza. ".在这里，“either”提供了一个语言线索，即句子具有一个结构，其中一个元素（“a pizza”）将与另一个元素形成对比。如果这个知识被用于预测，读者可能会期望句子由一个“或”短语继续，比如“或一个馅饼”，这提供了一个合理的对比。研究将熟练的读者提供证据，这种使用的句法预测表明，较少的时间花在看“或”短语时，“either”是使用。因此，一个进一步的研究问题是，不太熟练的读者是否也受益于句法预测。