Lexical Predictability During Natural Reading: Effects of Surprisal and Entropy Reduction.

ABSTRACT: What are the effects of word-by-word predictability on sentence processing times during the natural reading of a text? Although information complexity metrics such as surprisal and entropy reduction have been useful in addressing this question, these metrics tend to be estimated using computational language models, which require some degree of commitment to a particular theory of language processing. Taking a different approach, this study implemented a large-scale cumulative cloze task to collect word-by-word predictability data for 40 passages and compute surprisal and entropy reduction values in a theory-neutral manner. A separate group of participants read the same texts while their eye movements were recorded. Results showed that increases in surprisal and entropy reduction were both

SUBMITTER: Lowder MW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5988918 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature