Theories of learning and attention predict a positive relationship between reading times on unfamiliar words and their learning; however, empirical findings of contextual learning studies range from a strong positive relationship to no relationship. To test the conjecture that longer reading times may reflect different cognitive and metacognitive processes, the need to infer novel word meanings from context was deliberately manipulated. One hundred and two adult first– and second–language English language speakers read sixty passages containing pseudowords while their eye movements were recorded. The passages were either preceded or followed by pseudoword definitions. After reading, participants completed posttests of cued meaning recall and form recognition. Meaning recall was positively associated with (i) individual cumulative reading times and (ii) participants’ general vocabulary knowledge, but not when definitions were provided before reading. Form recognition was unaffected by cumulative reading times. Our findings call for a cautious approach in making causative links between eye–movement measures and vocabulary learning from reading.

中文翻译：

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阅读时间可以预测单词学习吗？使用新词进行眼动追踪研究


学习和注意力理论预测了不熟悉单词的阅读时间与其学习之间存在正相关关系;然而，情境学习研究的实证结果从强正关系到没有关系。为了检验较长的阅读时间可能反映不同的认知和元认知过程的猜想，从上下文中推断新词含义的需求被故意操纵了。102 名成年第一和第二语言英语使用者阅读了 60 篇包含伪词的文章，同时记录了他们的眼球运动。这些段落要么在前面或后面有伪词定义。阅读后，参与者完成了提示、意义回忆和形式识别的后测。意义回忆与 （i） 个人累积阅读时间和 （ii） 参与者的一般词汇知识呈正相关，但在阅读前提供定义时则不然。表单识别不受累积阅读时间的影响。我们的研究结果要求采取谨慎的方法，在眼动测量和从阅读中学习词汇之间建立因果关系。