The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking
Line breaks are ubiquitous in continuous text, as in this article. Despite this prevalence, their effects on parsing and interpretation have been markedly understudied in previous research on written language processing. To shed light on these effects, we conducted a self-paced reading and an eye-tr...
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Cambridge University Press
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Language and Cognition |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980825100094/type/journal_article |
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| author | Andromachi Tsoukala Margreet Vogelzang Ianthi Maria Tsimpli |
| author_facet | Andromachi Tsoukala Margreet Vogelzang Ianthi Maria Tsimpli |
| author_sort | Andromachi Tsoukala |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Line breaks are ubiquitous in continuous text, as in this article. Despite this prevalence, their effects on parsing and interpretation have been markedly understudied in previous research on written language processing. To shed light on these effects, we conducted a self-paced reading and an eye-tracking study in which participants read multiline texts that contained direct object–subject ambiguity, a type of temporary clause boundary ambiguity. Within these texts, we manipulated the placement of line breaks so that they either regularly coincided or clashed with clause boundaries. We hypothesised that this manipulation would cause readers to adjust their parsing strategies and interpretative commitments. Results revealed that the way in which text is segmented through line breaks can significantly affect how readers parse syntactically ambiguous structures. While coinciding line breaks and clause boundaries helped readers arrive at the correct analysis of the ambiguous structures, cases of line break and clause boundary clash led readers down the garden path during online processing, and in some cases also impacted their comprehension. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the importance of text segmentation in real-world settings, such as books, educational material and digital content. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ee6ce559bbf04bb19630f146e54e3dd3 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1866-9808 1866-9859 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Language and Cognition |
| spelling | doaj-art-ee6ce559bbf04bb19630f146e54e3dd32025-08-20T02:46:44ZengCambridge University PressLanguage and Cognition1866-98081866-98592025-01-011710.1017/langcog.2025.10009The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-trackingAndromachi Tsoukala0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8930-2408Margreet Vogelzang1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2811-5419Ianthi Maria Tsimpli2Institut für Niederlandistik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, GermanySchool of Psychology, https://ror.org/01kj2bm70 Newcastle University , Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, https://ror.org/013meh722 University of Cambridge , Cambridge, UKDepartment of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, https://ror.org/013meh722 University of Cambridge , Cambridge, UKLine breaks are ubiquitous in continuous text, as in this article. Despite this prevalence, their effects on parsing and interpretation have been markedly understudied in previous research on written language processing. To shed light on these effects, we conducted a self-paced reading and an eye-tracking study in which participants read multiline texts that contained direct object–subject ambiguity, a type of temporary clause boundary ambiguity. Within these texts, we manipulated the placement of line breaks so that they either regularly coincided or clashed with clause boundaries. We hypothesised that this manipulation would cause readers to adjust their parsing strategies and interpretative commitments. Results revealed that the way in which text is segmented through line breaks can significantly affect how readers parse syntactically ambiguous structures. While coinciding line breaks and clause boundaries helped readers arrive at the correct analysis of the ambiguous structures, cases of line break and clause boundary clash led readers down the garden path during online processing, and in some cases also impacted their comprehension. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the importance of text segmentation in real-world settings, such as books, educational material and digital content.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980825100094/type/journal_articleimplicit prosodyline breaksprimingreadingsyntactic ambiguitytext segmentation |
| spellingShingle | Andromachi Tsoukala Margreet Vogelzang Ianthi Maria Tsimpli The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking Language and Cognition implicit prosody line breaks priming reading syntactic ambiguity text segmentation |
| title | The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking |
| title_full | The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking |
| title_fullStr | The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking |
| title_full_unstemmed | The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking |
| title_short | The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing: evidence from self-paced reading and eye-tracking |
| title_sort | influence of text segmentation on garden path processing evidence from self paced reading and eye tracking |
| topic | implicit prosody line breaks priming reading syntactic ambiguity text segmentation |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1866980825100094/type/journal_article |
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