COMPREHENDING REFERENTIAL EXPRESSIONS DURING READING - EVIDENCE FROM EYE TRACKING

Two eye-tracking experiments investigated how referential expressions, consisting of proper names and pronouns, influence reading comprehens ion. Experiment 1 showed that repeated names caused elevated reading t imes compared to pronouns, a finding that has been called the repeated -name penalty in studies using self-paced reading (Gordon, Grosz, & Gi lliom, 1993). Consistent with these previous studies, Experiment 1 als o showed that the repeated-name penalty occurs for syntactic subjects that corefer with the subject of the preceding sentence, but does not occur for direct objects that corefer with an object of the preceding sentence. These results further serve to localize the repeated-name pe nalty within the sentence and to show that it can be associated with a n increase in the frequency of regressive saccades out of the text reg ion beyond the repeated name. Experiment 2 showed that the repeated-na me penalty was modulated not only by syntactic factors within a senten ce but also by the relationship between successive sentences in a disc ourse. The results of these experiments provide strong support for the centering theory of discourse and related approaches to the processin g of referential and coreferential expressions.