Abstract:

With eye-tracking methodology, the present study aimed to explore the developmental trajectory of irrelevant speech effects during reading among children across Grades 1−5. By manipulating the type of background sound (meaningful speech, meaningless speech, white noise and quiet), we found that: 1) meaningful speech interfered with all the children’s reading performance, whereas meaningless speech only interfered with reading comprehension among second-grade children; 2) meaningful speech interfered with both the early and late time course stages of vocabulary processing, whereas meaningless speech only affected the late stages of vocabulary processing in lower grades. The results indicate that the mechanism of irrelevant speech effect in primary students is due to the fact that irrelevant speech contains semantic components, supporting the semantic interference hypothesis. The interference effect of phonological components was only observed in the early grades of child development, partially supporting the phonological interference hypothesis. This suggests that younger children are more susceptible to irrelevant speech interference because cognitive functions such as working memory and inhibitory control have not yet fully matured. The irrelevant speech effect in children’s reading decreases with age and stabilizes by the third grade.

Key words: irrelevant speech effect, children, reading comprehension, eye tracking

摘要：

本研究采用眼动技术，操纵背景音(有意义言语、无意义言语、白噪音、安静)，探讨1～5年级儿童阅读中的无关言语效应及其发展变化。结果发现：有意义言语对1～5年级儿童均造成干扰，而无意义言语仅干扰二年级儿童阅读理解；有意义言语干扰词汇加工的全过程(早期、晚期阶段)，无意义言语仅影响低年级儿童词汇加工的晚期阶段。结果表明：无关言语对儿童阅读的干扰主要是由于其语义成分，支持了语义干扰假说；语音成分的干扰作用仅表现在低年级，部分支持了语音干扰假说。儿童阅读中的无关言语效应随着年龄的增长而降低，到三年级趋于稳定。

关键词: 无关言语效应, 儿童, 阅读理解, 眼动