Syntactic Information Extraction in the Parafovea: Evidence from Two-Character Phrases in Chinese

Abstract

This study investigates syntactic parafoveal processing in Chinese reading using a boundary paradigm with two-character verb–object phrases. Participants (N = 120 undergraduates) viewed sentences with manipulated previews (identity, syntactically consistent, and inconsistent previews). Results showed a selective syntactic preview effect: syntactical violations reduced target word skipping rates, but fixation durations remained unaffected. This dissociation contrasts with robust syntactic preview benefits observed in alphabetic languages, highlighting how Chinese’s lack of morphological markers constrains parafoveal processing. The findings challenge parallel processing models while supporting language-specific modulation of universal cognitive mechanisms. Our results advance understanding of hierarchical information extraction in reading, with implications for developing cross-linguistic reading models.