Frisson, S., Rayner, K., & Pickering, M. J. (2005). Effects of contextual predictability and transitional probability on eye movements during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(5), 862-877.
Frisson, S.; Rayner, K.; Pickering, M.
2005
Frisson, S., Rayner, K., & Pickering, M. J. (2005). Effects of contextual predictability and transitional probability on eye movements during reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(5), 862-877.
1-2
In 2 eye-movement experiments, the authors tested whether transitional probability (the statistical likelihood that a word precedes or follows another word) affects reading times and whether this occurs independently from contextual predictability effects. Experiment 1 showed early effects of predictability, replicating S. A. McDonald and R. C. Shillcock's (2003a) finding that words with a high transitional probability (defeat following accept) are read faster than words with a low transitional probability (losses following accept). However, further analyses suggested that the transitional probability effect was likely due to differences in predictability rather than transitional probability. Experiment 2, using a better controlled set of items, again showed an effect of predictability, but no effect of transitional probability. The authors conclude that effects of transitional probability are part of regular predictability effects. Their data also show that predictability effects are detectable very early in the eye-movement record and between contexts that are weakly constraining.
Experiment 1 showed effects of TP and predictability in the early reading time measures. The lack of an interaction suggests that TP had an effect independent of predictability. However, comparisons of conditions that were better matched on strength of predictability and analyses of subsets cast doubt on this interpretation, and suggest that the purported TP effects could be traced back to regular predictability effects. Experiment 2 followed up on this suggestion and showed that, when predictability is well controlled, TP effects disappeared while regular predictability effects are still observed. Neither of the experiments showed significant effects of backward TP.
40
48