Abstract: For alphabetic language scripts, the decision about where to move the eyes next during reading is strongly influenced by low-level visual variables such as the spaces between words. However, written Chinese is a kind of ideographic writing system, which differs from alphabetic writing systems in many dimensions. More importantly, there are no spaces in Chinese text to separate words. Because of these differences, findings from English cannot be directly extended to Chinese reading. Zang, Liang, Bai, Yan and Liversedge (2013) added spaces to Chinese text to investigate whether the word boundacy information influenced where the eyes moved. The results showed that insertion of spaces between words partially guided the next saccadic target selection effectively. However, there are many spatially ambiguous words in Chinese system. In the present study, we wanted to investigate whether the word boundary information influenced the landing positions of the spatially ambiguous words. In current study, 60 spatially ambiguous words were used to examine whether the word boundary information influenced landing positions. Highlighting was used to create four analogous conditions: normal Chinese text, text with highlighting used to mark words, text with highlighting to mark the word formed by the second constituent character of the first word and the first constituent character of the second word, and text with highlighting to mark each character. The sentences were rated on a 5-point scale for their naturalness by 21 participants who did not take part in the eye-tracking study. The mean naturalness score was 4.48 (where a score of 5 was very natural). 56 participants were asked to read the experimental sentences, and their eye movements were monitored as they read texts. The participants’ eye movements were recorded with an SR Research EyeLink 2000 Eyetracker. They were required to read the sentences and understand them to the best of their ability. When they completed reading a sentence, they pushed a button box to terminate the display. They were instructed that occasionally a comprehension question would appear after a sentence and that they should try hard to answer the question correctly. The result showed that eye movement behaviors were different in different fixation cases. When there was only one fixation on the target spatially ambiguous words, the first fixations mostly landed on the centre of the word. Therefore, we found a preferred viewing location in single-fixation cases during Chinese reading. While there were multiple fixations on the target spatially ambiguous words, readers firstly fixated at the beginning of the target word. In those multiple fixation cases, if the first fixation landed at the beginning of the target spatially ambiguous words, the probability of refixating was the highest. Importantly, the results showed that the word boundary information did not influence the landing position of the first fixations. However, the word boundary information influenced the probability of refixation, and the probability of refixation in the single character highlighting condition. To conclude, the present study indicated that the word boundary information influenced the later stage of the spatially ambiguous words recognition processing

Key words: saccade strategy, preferred viewing location, optimal viewing position, the word boundary information, the spatially ambiguous words

摘要： 采用EyeLink 2000眼动仪，选取60个歧义短语，要求大学生被试阅读包含有歧义短语的句子。句子的呈现设置了四种条件：正常无阴影、词间阴影、歧义阴影和字间阴影，以探讨词边界信息是否影响读者阅读歧义短语时的注视位置效应。结果发现：读者对歧义短语的首次注视位置在四种条件下基本一致；词边界信息影响读者对歧义短语的再注视概率。结果表明，词边界信息对歧义短语的影响主要体现在歧义短语加工的晚期阶段。

关键词: 眼跳策略, 偏向注视位置, 最佳注视位置, 词边界信息, 歧义短语