Reading times for unknown words decrease significantly after three to four encounters, and by eight encounters unknown words are read like known words¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r1 · q3 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 For L2 readers, the decrease in gaze duration for target nonwords started to be significant from the third encounter (r = .47), and in number of fixations and total reading time from the fourth encounter (r = .42 and r = .53). → Pellicer-Sánchez 2016 q3 i? The difference between target and control reading measures disappeared in all measures only at the eighth encounter. → Pellicer-Sánchez 2016

Evidence¶

Pellicer-Sánchez 2016¶

Pellicer-Sánchez, Ana. (2016). Incidental L2 Vocabulary Acquisition From and While Reading: An Eye-Tracking Study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 38(1), 97-130. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263115000224

q3 · i3 · causal · r1

Post hoc Mann-Whitney comparisons with Bonferroni correction (.05/7 = .007) on eye-tracking data from 23 L2 participants across eight encounters, comparing the first encounter with each subsequent one. Printed effect sizes r = .47, r = .42, r = .53.

"the decrease in gaze duration for targets started to be significant from the third encounter, Z = –3.18, p = .002 , r = .47. In the case of number of fixations and total reading time, it was not until the fourth encounter that the effect of frequency of exposure started to be significant"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Decoding — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Vocabulary Knowledge Grows Incrementally With Repeated Encounters In Varied Contexts — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• The L1-L2 distinction in incidental vocabulary acquisition from reading lies in the rate, not the ultimate outcome, of the acquisition process — related
• Unknown words are read significantly longer than known control words in all four eye-tracking measures — related
• The more often learners meet a word while reading, the more likely they are to learn it incidentally; a meta-analysis of correlational studies finds a moderate correlation — related
• Reading times on unfamiliar words decrease non-linearly, following an S-shaped curve, as exposures accumulate during natural reading — a broader claim this one bears on
• Participants respond increasingly faster to stimuli presented more often during the incidental letter-search task — related
• Longer online reading times on unknown words are associated with higher vocabulary recall test scores — related
• After eight encounters in reading, L2 learners recognize the form and meaning of unknown words better than they can recall their meaning — related
• Vocabulary knowledge gained from eight encounters persisted over two weeks, with no significant immediate-to-delayed test differences — related
• Lexical simplification (high-frequency target words) substantially reduces word-level processing times in adult sentence reading — related