Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40723691›Full record

ArticleBehavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)2025

The Character Position Encoding of Parafoveal Semantic Previews Is Flexible in Chinese Reading.

Min Chang, Yun Ma, Zhenying Pu, Yanqun Zhu, Jingxuan Li, Lvqing Miao, Xingguo Zhu

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Min ChangDepartment of Applied Psychology, School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
Yun MaDepartment of Applied Psychology, School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
Zhenying PuDepartment of Applied Psychology, School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
Yanqun ZhuDepartment of Applied Psychology, School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
Jingxuan LiDepartment of Applied Psychology, School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
Lvqing MiaoDepartment of Traffic Psychology, Institute of Special Environmental Medicine, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.
Xingguo ZhuDepartment of Applied Psychology, School of Education Science, Nantong University, Nantong 226019, China.

Funding

Jiangsu Institute of Education Sciences B/2023/01/109Large Instruments Open Foundation of Nantong University KFJN2503
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Extant Chinese studies have documented that transposing characters within two-character words (e.g., suit) yields greater parafoveal preview benefits for target words compared to replacing the characters with unrelated ones (e.g., a nonword), i.e., the Chinese character transposition effect. This effect has been interpreted as evidence for flexible positional encoding in parafoveal processing, whereby readers tolerate character order disruptions. Alternatively, it has been attributed to morpheme-to-word activation. The present study aims to further clarify the mechanism of the transposition effect. We manipulated four preview conditions of target words in a sentence, identical, semantic, transposed semantic, and control preview, using an eye tracker to record eye movements. Experiment 1 employed reversible word pairs (e.g., tie- lead) as semantical and transposed previews for targets (e.g., suit). Experiment 2 used non-reversible word pairs (e.g., shirt- a nonword). The results revealed comparable processing for both the semantic and transposed semantic preview conditions. Critically, the transposed semantic preview yielded a processing advantage over the unrelated preview. These findings demonstrated that Chinese readers efficiently extract semantic information from the parafoveal region even when character order is disrupted, indicating flexible character position encoding.

Indexed as

Chinese readingeye movementsemantic preview effecttransposed-character effect

Identifiers

PMID40723691
PMCPMC12292683

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.