Refereed journal article or data article (A1)
AN EYE-MOVEMENT ANALYSIS OF TOPIC-SHIFT EFFECT DURING REPEATED READING
List of Authors: HYONA J
Publisher: AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
Publication year: 1995
Journal: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
Journal name in source: JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-LEARNING MEMORY AND COGNITION
Journal acronym: J EXP PSYCHOL LEARN
Volume number: 21
Issue number: 5
Start page: 1365
End page: 1373
Number of pages: 9
ISSN: 0278-7393
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.5.A
Abstract
This study replicated previous reading time studies that have observed increased reading times for sentences introducing a new subtopic in a text, compared with sentences that are continuations of a subtopic. This topic-shift effect was obtained for the initial reading but not when the same text was reread. The absence of topic-shift effect was taken to suggest that readers construct a mental representation of the text's topic structure during the initial reading. The topic-shift effect was primarily due to regressive fixations, which tended to land in the first half of sentences. Regressions were typically launched al the end of sentences, with topic-shift sentences also well before the sentence end was reached. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the integrative nature of regressive fixations.
This study replicated previous reading time studies that have observed increased reading times for sentences introducing a new subtopic in a text, compared with sentences that are continuations of a subtopic. This topic-shift effect was obtained for the initial reading but not when the same text was reread. The absence of topic-shift effect was taken to suggest that readers construct a mental representation of the text's topic structure during the initial reading. The topic-shift effect was primarily due to regressive fixations, which tended to land in the first half of sentences. Regressions were typically launched al the end of sentences, with topic-shift sentences also well before the sentence end was reached. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the integrative nature of regressive fixations.
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