Exploring effects of foveal load and preview restrictions for single and multiple parafoveal words in Chinese reading

Zhang, Manman and Zhang, Zhichao and Li, Fang and Bai, Xuejun and Zang, Chuanli and Liversedge, Simon P (2026) Exploring effects of foveal load and preview restrictions for single and multiple parafoveal words in Chinese reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 146. ISSN 0749-596X

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Abstract

Two experiments are reported that used the boundary paradigm to investigate how foveal lexical processing load (high/low frequency) of a pre-target word influences parafoveal processing of upcoming target word(s) with either zero-, one-, two- or three-character, or full preview in Chinese reading. In Experiment 1, the three characters comprised a single word as the target while in Experiment 2 they formed multiple words (two or three words). Pre-target word analyses showed an effective foveal load manipulation with low frequency pre-targets being fixated for longer than high frequency pre-targets in both experiments. Both experiments showed robust preview extent effects at the target words, such that fixation times increased, and landing positions shortened dramatically with reduced preview extent. Modulatory influences of foveal load effects were obtained on both fixation times and landing positions at the target region. These effects themselves were consistent, but reduced, for parafoveal character strings comprised of multiple words relative to a single word, consistent with the MCU hypothesis (Zang, 2019). Our findings demonstrate that increased foveal load reduces the disruptive influence of restrictive parafoveal windows and reduces preview extent in relation to saccadic targeting. The current findings align at a very basic level with the Foveal Load Hypothesis (Henderson & Ferreira, 1990), though the results indicate that a more nuanced theoretical account is necessary to capture all aspects of the results in respect of Chinese reading.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	© 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	RISE Symplectic
Depositing User:	RISE Symplectic
Date Deposited:	24 Nov 2025 12:33
Last Modified:	24 Nov 2025 12:33
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4801

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