Authors: Drieghe, Denis¹; Desmet, Timothy¹; Brysbaert, Marc²

Source: British Journal of Psychology, Volume 98, Number 1, February 2007 , pp. 157-171(15)

Abstract:

The probability of skipping a word is influenced by its processing ease. For instance, a word that is predictable from the preceding context is skipped more often than an unpredictable word. A meta-analysis of studies examining this predictability effect reported effect sizes ranging from 0 to 13%, with an average of 8%. One study does not fit within this picture and reported 23% more skipping of Dutch pronouns in sentences in which the pronoun had no disambiguating value (e.g. `Mary was envious of Helen because she never looked so good') than in sentences where it did have a disambiguating value (e.g. `Mary was envious of Albert because she never looked so good'). We re-examined this ambiguity in Dutch using a task that more closely resembles normal reading and observed only a 9% difference in skipping of the pronoun, bringing this linguistic effect in line with the other findings.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1348/000712606X111258

Affiliations: 1: Ghent University, Belgium 2: Royal Holloway, University of London, UK