Abstract: One of the main controversies in the field of eye movements in reading concerns the question of whether the processing of two adjacent words in reading occurs in sequence, or in parallel. This research tries to distinguish between these views by analyzing parafoveal-on-foveal effects in the course of lexical processing. Parafoveal-on-foveal (POF) effects occur when lexical properties of word n influence processing on word n－1 during reading. Different eye movement models of reading hold diverse assumption on POF effects. The E-Z Reader model, one of the best known serial attention allocation models, assumed that the POF effect are null because the attention on adjacent words is serial and the processing of word n－1 should not be influenced by the lexical processing of word n. But the parallel model SWIFT considered that the word within a perceptual span could be processed in parallel. The parafoveal processing difficulty would slow down foveal processing and the positive POF effects should be found. In the other hand, Kennedy reported an inverted parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Parafoveal processing difficulty decrease processing time on the foveal word while reading. He referred to this process as magnetic attraction. Normally, the argument to the results of POF effects focused on whether the effects were caused by saccade error. And the boundary paradigm, the most commonly used paradigm in the POF effects study, could raise saccade error and lack in balancing saccade error between experimental conditions. A new paradigm called distraction paradigm was adopted in this study to control the saccade error. The present study examined whether semantic POF effects could occur in Chinese sentence reading. 26 collage students participated in this research, average age 20.8（SD=1.6）. All participants were university students and spoke Chinese as their native language. 92 pairs of semantic related and unrelated words with word n－1 were selected. The semantic related and unrelated word n were inserted behind word n－1 directly in italic style and all participants were told to ignore them. The first pass fixation data of word n－1 were analyzed. The size of each character was 1.30cm×1.30cm (33 pixel×33 pixel). With a viewing distance of 75cm, one character space subtended approximately 0.9°of visual angle. The results showed that, compared to the related word n condition, the gaze duration of word n－1 was longer in unrelated word n condition, the refixation rate of word n－1 was also higher in unrelated condition. The semantic relationship between two adjacent words would affect the processing of word n－1 and the positive POF effects in Chinese reading were found in this study. The results supported the view that the semantic information from the parafoveal word could be processed with foveal word in parallel. And the results sustained the assumption of the typical parrel model, SWIFT model.

Key words: parafoveal-on-foveal effects, semantic connection, eye movements, serial processing, parallel processing, E-Z reader model, SWIFT model

摘要： 阅读时词汇加工的注意分配是序列的还是平行的，是所有眼动控制模型需解答的关键问题。对此，可通过分析副中央窝-中央窝效应（POF效应）进行解释。以往研究结果的争议在于POF效应是否为误差眼跳。本研究为控制眼跳误差，采用分心阅读范式，考察词n与词n－1的语义相关性对词n－1加工的影响，探讨中文阅读的POF效应。实验以26名大学生为被试，选取高频双字词为词n－1，低频双字词为词n。结果发现当词n－1与词n语义相关性高时，词n－1的凝视时间更短，再注视率更低，出现同向的POF效应。本研究在一定条件下支持SWIFT模型为代表的平行加工假设。

关键词: 副中央窝-中央窝效应, 语义相关, 眼动, 序列加工, 平行加工, E-Z阅读者模型, SWIFT模型