Understanding literacy effects on predictive processing in reading

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，它利用过去经验的知识来预测未来的事件。这在词汇预测的背景下得到了最广泛的研究，在词汇预测的背景下，读者利用他们的知识预测句子中的下一个单词。例如，当读到一句话，开头是“冷饮和一片……”时，读者可能会认为下一个词是“lemon”，而“cucumber”可能没那么令人期待，但也是可能的。大量证据表明，熟练的读者受益于预测性加工。这包括眼球运动研究表明，读者花在看更可预测的单词上的时间更少，以及脑电(EEG)对大脑活动的研究表明，更可预测的单词会引发更小的电生理反应。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有研究考察技能较低的读者进行预测处理的情况，尽管这可能会揭示他们所经历的困难。因此，拟议项目的目的是更充分地了解识字技能在支持语言预测方面的作用。该项目将对这一问题采取实验方法，研究的一些要素将在本科生参与者中进行(如下所述)，其他要素将在16至18岁的中学生中进行。后者是一个研究中的参与者群体，他们本应掌握阅读技巧，但与本科生群体相比，他们可能拥有更多样化的识字技能。与这一群体的合作将探索这项研究如何对阅读教学产生影响。确定识字技能是否影响词汇预测的使用是至关重要的。这将涉及到使用眼睛测量来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。为了评估识字能力的效果，我们会招募具有广泛阅读能力的参与者，并使用标准化的词汇知识和理解能力测试(例如Nelson-Denny阅读测试)和阅读习惯进行评估。这将使我们能够确定不太熟练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)可以预测效果。根据结果，后续实验可能会检验熟练读者和非熟练读者的预测成本是否存在差异。这指的是很难修正一个不正确的预测；例如，当预测下一个词是“lemon”时，却发现用的是“黄瓜”。一种可能性是，不熟练的读者发现更难修正错误的预测。到目前为止，研究主要集中在词汇预测上。然而，人们对其他形式的预测越来越感兴趣，包括句法预测。这是读者利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。假设有这样一种情况，在这种情况下，单词“或”出现在以“顾客决定点一个披萨……”开头的句子中。在这里，“任一”提供了一种语言线索，即句子有一种结构，其中一个元素(“披萨”)将与另一个元素进行对比。如果这一知识被有预见性地使用，读者可能会认为句子后面会有一个“or”-短语，例如“or a calzone”，这提供了一种似是而非的对比。熟练读者的研究将为句法预测的这种使用提供证据，因为他们发现，当使用“or”时，花在查看“or”短语上的时间更少。因此，一个进一步的研究问题将是，不太熟练的读者是否也能从句法预测中受益。

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.