Diacritics are glyph-like marks on letters that convey vowel information in Arabic, thus allowing... more Diacritics are glyph-like marks on letters that convey vowel information in Arabic, thus allowing for accurate pronunciation and disambiguation of homographs. For skilled readers, diacritics are usually omitted except when their omission causes ambiguity. Undiacritized homographs are very common in Arabic and are predominantly heterophones (where each meaning sounds different), with one version more common (dominant) than the others (subordinate). In this study we investigated parafoveal processing of diacritics during reading. We presented native readers with heterophonic homographs embedded in sentences with diacritization that instantiated either dominant or subordinate pronunciations of the homographs. Using the boundary paradigm, we presented previews of these words carrying either: identical diacritization to the target; inaccurate diacritization, such that if the target had dominant diacritization, the preview contained subordinate diacritization, and vice versa; or no diacritics. The results showed that readers processed the identity of diacritics parafoveally, such that inaccurate previews of the diacritics resulted in inflated fixation durations, particularly for fixations originating at close launch sites. Moreover, our results clearly indicate that readers' expectation for dominant or subordinate diacritization patterns influences their parafoveal and foveal processing of diacritics. Specifically, a perceived absence of diacritics (either in no-diacritics previews, or because the eyes were too far away to process the presence of diacritics) induced an expectation for the dominant pronunciation, whereas the perceived presence of diacritics induced an expectation for the subordinate meaning.
The authors conducted 2 eye movement experiments in which they used the typographical and linguis... more The authors conducted 2 eye movement experiments in which they used the typographical and linguistic properties of Arabic to disentangle the influences of words’ number of letters and spatial extent on measures of fixation duration and saccade targeting (Experiment 1), and to investigate the influence of initial bigram characteristics on saccade targeting during reading (Experiment 2). In the first experiment, through the use of a proportional font, which is more natural-looking in Arabic compared to monospaced fonts, the authors manipulated the number of letters (5 vs. 7) and the spatial extent (wide vs. narrow) of words embedded in frame sentences. The results obtained replicate and expand upon previous findings in other alphabetic languages that the number of letters influences fixation durations, whereas saccade targeting (as indicated by measures of fixation count and probability of skipping and refixation) is more influenced by the word’s spatial extent. In the second experiment, the authors compared saccade targeting measures (saccade amplitude and initial fixation location) in 6- and 7-letter words beginning with initial bigrams that were of extremely high frequency ( the), relatively high frequency ( to/for the), or beginning with the letters of the word stem. The results showed negligible modulation of saccade targeting by initial bigram characteristics. The results also highlighted the importance of selecting the appropriate measures of initial fixation location (spatial vs. character-based measures) during reading text rendered using proportional fonts.
The desire to be a part of a wider social network is a basic human need and research has found th... more The desire to be a part of a wider social network is a basic human need and research has found that possessing a strong 'sense of community' is associated with a range of positive outcomes, both in terms of physical and mental health. In adults and adolescents alike, it has been argued that four factors contribute to an individual's sense of community, namely; membership, influence, shared emotional connection, and reinforcement of need (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). Given that pupils' sense of community in primary school has been relatively neglected by the literature, a new measure of the construct was developed for this age group. The impact of pupils' gender and year group on sense of community was also explored. A focus group with Year 5 and 6 pupils was used to develop the Sense of Community Index-Primary (SCI-P) and following piloting, 452 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils completed the measure in school. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor model of sense of community, which represents a departure from McMillan and Chavis's (1986) framework. A significant main effect of gender was found, while a year group hypothesis was only partially supported. Practical applications and limitations of this research are also discussed. Keywords: Psychological sense of community; school; sense of community index; school belonging; children; citizenship; community cohesion; inclusive schools.
Diacritics convey vowel sounds in Arabic, allowing accurate word pronunciation. Mostly, modern Ar... more Diacritics convey vowel sounds in Arabic, allowing accurate word pronunciation. Mostly, modern Arabic is printed nondiacritized. Otherwise, diacritics appear either only on homographic words when not disambiguated by surrounding text or on all words as in religious or educational texts. In an eye-tracking experiment, we examined sentence processing in the absence of diacritics and when diacritics were presented in either modes. Heterophonic homographic target verbs that have different pronunciations in active and passive (e.g., /daraba/, hit; /doriba/, was hit) were embedded in temporarily ambiguous sentences in which in the absence of diacritics, readers cannot be certain whether the verb was active or passive. Passive sentences were disambiguated by an extra word (e.g., /bijad/, by the hand of). Our results show that readers benefitted from the disambiguating diacritics when present only on the homographic verb. When disambiguating diacritics were absent, Arabic readers followed their parsing preference for active verb analysis, and garden path effects were observed. When reading fully diacritized sentences, readers incurred only a small cost, likely due to increased visual crowding, but did not extensively process the (mostly superfluous) diacritics, thus resulting in a lack of benefit from the disambiguating diacritics on the passive verb. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)
Diacritics are glyph-like marks on letters that convey vowel information in Arabic, thus allowing... more Diacritics are glyph-like marks on letters that convey vowel information in Arabic, thus allowing for accurate pronunciation and disambiguation of homographs. For skilled readers, diacritics are usually omitted except when their omission causes ambiguity. Undiacritized homographs are very common in Arabic and are predominantly heterophones (where each meaning sounds different), with one version more common (dominant) than the others (subordinate). In this study we investigated parafoveal processing of diacritics during reading. We presented native readers with heterophonic homographs embedded in sentences with diacritization that instantiated either dominant or subordinate pronunciations of the homographs. Using the boundary paradigm, we presented previews of these words carrying either: identical diacritization to the target; inaccurate diacritization, such that if the target had dominant diacritization, the preview contained subordinate diacritization, and vice versa; or no diacritics. The results showed that readers processed the identity of diacritics parafoveally, such that inaccurate previews of the diacritics resulted in inflated fixation durations, particularly for fixations originating at close launch sites. Moreover, our results clearly indicate that readers' expectation for dominant or subordinate diacritization patterns influences their parafoveal and foveal processing of diacritics. Specifically, a perceived absence of diacritics (either in no-diacritics previews, or because the eyes were too far away to process the presence of diacritics) induced an expectation for the dominant pronunciation, whereas the perceived presence of diacritics induced an expectation for the subordinate meaning.
The authors conducted 2 eye movement experiments in which they used the typographical and linguis... more The authors conducted 2 eye movement experiments in which they used the typographical and linguistic properties of Arabic to disentangle the influences of words’ number of letters and spatial extent on measures of fixation duration and saccade targeting (Experiment 1), and to investigate the influence of initial bigram characteristics on saccade targeting during reading (Experiment 2). In the first experiment, through the use of a proportional font, which is more natural-looking in Arabic compared to monospaced fonts, the authors manipulated the number of letters (5 vs. 7) and the spatial extent (wide vs. narrow) of words embedded in frame sentences. The results obtained replicate and expand upon previous findings in other alphabetic languages that the number of letters influences fixation durations, whereas saccade targeting (as indicated by measures of fixation count and probability of skipping and refixation) is more influenced by the word’s spatial extent. In the second experiment, the authors compared saccade targeting measures (saccade amplitude and initial fixation location) in 6- and 7-letter words beginning with initial bigrams that were of extremely high frequency ( the), relatively high frequency ( to/for the), or beginning with the letters of the word stem. The results showed negligible modulation of saccade targeting by initial bigram characteristics. The results also highlighted the importance of selecting the appropriate measures of initial fixation location (spatial vs. character-based measures) during reading text rendered using proportional fonts.
The desire to be a part of a wider social network is a basic human need and research has found th... more The desire to be a part of a wider social network is a basic human need and research has found that possessing a strong 'sense of community' is associated with a range of positive outcomes, both in terms of physical and mental health. In adults and adolescents alike, it has been argued that four factors contribute to an individual's sense of community, namely; membership, influence, shared emotional connection, and reinforcement of need (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). Given that pupils' sense of community in primary school has been relatively neglected by the literature, a new measure of the construct was developed for this age group. The impact of pupils' gender and year group on sense of community was also explored. A focus group with Year 5 and 6 pupils was used to develop the Sense of Community Index-Primary (SCI-P) and following piloting, 452 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils completed the measure in school. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor model of sense of community, which represents a departure from McMillan and Chavis's (1986) framework. A significant main effect of gender was found, while a year group hypothesis was only partially supported. Practical applications and limitations of this research are also discussed. Keywords: Psychological sense of community; school; sense of community index; school belonging; children; citizenship; community cohesion; inclusive schools.
Diacritics convey vowel sounds in Arabic, allowing accurate word pronunciation. Mostly, modern Ar... more Diacritics convey vowel sounds in Arabic, allowing accurate word pronunciation. Mostly, modern Arabic is printed nondiacritized. Otherwise, diacritics appear either only on homographic words when not disambiguated by surrounding text or on all words as in religious or educational texts. In an eye-tracking experiment, we examined sentence processing in the absence of diacritics and when diacritics were presented in either modes. Heterophonic homographic target verbs that have different pronunciations in active and passive (e.g., /daraba/, hit; /doriba/, was hit) were embedded in temporarily ambiguous sentences in which in the absence of diacritics, readers cannot be certain whether the verb was active or passive. Passive sentences were disambiguated by an extra word (e.g., /bijad/, by the hand of). Our results show that readers benefitted from the disambiguating diacritics when present only on the homographic verb. When disambiguating diacritics were absent, Arabic readers followed their parsing preference for active verb analysis, and garden path effects were observed. When reading fully diacritized sentences, readers incurred only a small cost, likely due to increased visual crowding, but did not extensively process the (mostly superfluous) diacritics, thus resulting in a lack of benefit from the disambiguating diacritics on the passive verb. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)
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