Exploring the cognitive mechanism of irrelevant speech effect in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00729

Abstract

Abstract:

Eye-tracking is used to explore the cognitive mechanism of irrelevant speech effects in Chinese reading. The types of background speech (intelligible background speech, unintelligible background speech, and silence) were manually assigned, and three distinct experiments were conducted to investigate the irrelevant speech effects on the reading of simple sentences, complex sentences, and paragraphs. The results showed no significant difference in key eye movement measures between a silent background and an unintelligible background speech condition across all three experiments. In Experiment 1 (simple sentences), there was no significant difference between the silent and intelligible background speech condition. However, in Experiment 2 (complex sentences), normal reading was disrupted with an intelligible background speech, and an ISE was seen for more difficult sentences. Finally, Experiment 3 (paragraphs) also suggested an ISE. The conclusions from the three experiments include two aspects. Firstly, unintelligible background speech does not disrupt normal reading significantly, which contradicts the Phonological-Interference Hypothesis. Secondly, intelligible background speech can disrupt the reading of complex (but not simple) sentences as well as paragraph reading, which is supportive of the Semantic-Interference Hypothesis. It can be inferred from such findings that irrelevant speech might disrupt later stages of lexical processing and semantic integration in reading, and such disruption is modulated by the difficulty of the reading task.

Key words: irrelevant speech effect, background speech, reading, cognitive mechanism, eye-movements

WU Sanmei, TIAN Liangsu, CHEN Jiaqiao, CHEN Guangyao, WANG Jingxin. (2021). Exploring the cognitive mechanism of irrelevant speech effect in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 53(7), 729-745.

Figures/Tables 12

References 53

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Background speech	mean fixation duration (ms)	total reading time (ms)	number of fixations	regression count
Silence	224 (1)	4819 (66)	12.67 (0.14)	3.22 (0.06)
unintelligible speech	224 (1)	4674 (60)	12.38 (0.13)	3.29 (0.06)
intelligible speech	225 (1)	4899 (66)	13.22 (0.16)	3.62 (0.07)

Background speech	mean fixation duration (ms)	total reading time (ms)	number of fixations	regression count
Silence	224 (1)	4819 (66)	12.67 (0.14)	3.22 (0.06)
unintelligible speech	224 (1)	4674 (60)	12.38 (0.13)	3.29 (0.06)
intelligible speech	225 (1)	4899 (66)	13.22 (0.16)	3.62 (0.07)

Eye movement measures	mean fixation duration					total reading time
Eye movement measures	β	SE	t	p	95% CI	β	SE	t	p	95% CI
Intercept	224.03	4.32	51.91	< 0.001	[5.15, 5.43]	4788.43	232.69	20.58	< 0.001	[8.28, 8.56]
unintelligible speech vs silence	-0.38	2.24	-0.17	0.87	[-0.12, 0.32]	-146.26	118.41	-1.24	0.22	[-0.27, 0.13]
intelligible speech vs silence	0.39	1.67	0.23	0.82	[0.17, 0.42]	58.82	103.85	0.57	0.57	[0.26, 0.55]
intelligible vs unintelligible speech	0.56	1.9	0.29	0.77	[0.23, 0.58]	190	124.65	1.52	0.13	[0.15, 0.46]
Eye movement measures	number of fixations					regression count
Eye movement measures	β	SE	t	p	95% CI	β	SE	t	p	95% CI
Intercept	12.66	0.48	26.12	< 0.001	[2.19, 2.54]	3.28	0.18	18.37	< 0.001	[3.47, 3.86]
unintelligible speech vs silence	-0.31	0.3	-1.01	0.32	[-0.17, 0.33]	0.02	0.13	0.17	0.87	[0.07, 0.28]
intelligible speech vs silence	0.45	0.28	1.59	0.12	[0.02, 0.37]	0.35	0.11	3.12	< 0.001	[0.05, 0.42]
intelligible vs unintelligible speech	0.69	0.34	1.83	0.06	[0.11, 0.62]	0.30	0.15	2.08	0.04	[0.19, 0.67]

Eye movement measures	mean fixation duration					total reading time
Eye movement measures	β	SE	t	p	95% CI	β	SE	t	p	95% CI
Intercept	224.03	4.32	51.91	< 0.001	[5.15, 5.43]	4788.43	232.69	20.58	< 0.001	[8.28, 8.56]
unintelligible speech vs silence	-0.38	2.24	-0.17	0.87	[-0.12, 0.32]	-146.26	118.41	-1.24	0.22	[-0.27, 0.13]
intelligible speech vs silence	0.39	1.67	0.23	0.82	[0.17, 0.42]	58.82	103.85	0.57	0.57	[0.26, 0.55]
intelligible vs unintelligible speech	0.56	1.9	0.29	0.77	[0.23, 0.58]	190	124.65	1.52	0.13	[0.15, 0.46]
Eye movement measures	number of fixations					regression count
Eye movement measures	β	SE	t	p	95% CI	β	SE	t	p	95% CI
Intercept	12.66	0.48	26.12	< 0.001	[2.19, 2.54]	3.28	0.18	18.37	< 0.001	[3.47, 3.86]
unintelligible speech vs silence	-0.31	0.3	-1.01	0.32	[-0.17, 0.33]	0.02	0.13	0.17	0.87	[0.07, 0.28]
intelligible speech vs silence	0.45	0.28	1.59	0.12	[0.02, 0.37]	0.35	0.11	3.12	< 0.001	[0.05, 0.42]
intelligible vs unintelligible speech	0.69	0.34	1.83	0.06	[0.11, 0.62]	0.30	0.15	2.08	0.04	[0.19, 0.67]

Background speech	first fixation duration (ms)	gaze duration (ms)	regression path reading time (ms)	total fixation duration (ms)
Silence	244 (3)	265 (4)	331 (9)	352 (7)
unintelligible speech	242 (3)	264 (4)	328 (9)	349 (7)
intelligible speech	240 (3)	266 (5)	336 (10)	357 (7)