Effects of word processing and language experience on eye movements in reading Russian as a foreign language

Abstract

The present study investigated the influence of lexical processing of the fixated word and the adjacent words on the eye movements of Chinese-speaking students in reading Russian stories. In natural reading, fixation times are affected not only by the properties of the current fixated word but also the properties of the past and next words in the sentence. The immediacy, lag, and successor effects of words suggest distributed processing in the reading span that is affected by processing efficiency of the foveal and parafoveal words. Analyzing the contribution of word properties in the reading span on fixation times could be used to show the individual differences of foreign language acquisition on processing words in natural reading.