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The effect of word predictability on reading time is logarithmic
Nathaniel J Smith1, Roger Levy
1Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, USA. nathaniel.smith@ed.ac.uk
Cognition
|June 11, 2013
Summary
Researchers quantified the relationship between word predictability and reading time, finding it
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Computational Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Real-time language processing is incremental and context-dependent.
- Reader expectation significantly impacts word integration difficulty, reflected in reading times.
- Previous research showed expectation effects but lacked quantitative relationships.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantitatively establish the relationship between word predictability and reading times.
- To test existing models of reading and propose a novel one.
- To understand prediction's role in language comprehension.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a state-of-the-art computational language model.
- Analyzed two large behavioral datasets.
- Employed non-parametric statistical techniques.
Main Results:
- Established a quantitative, logarithmic relationship between predictability and reading time over six orders of magnitude.
- Found the results challenge some reading models but support perceptual discrimination accounts.
- Proposed a novel model of incremental processing below the word level.
Conclusions:
- Comprehenders are sensitive to predictability differences, even among unpredictable words.
- The findings challenge anticipatory and semantic integration accounts of predictability effects.
- Supports a unified understanding of prediction across linguistic structures in real-time comprehension.
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