Foveal and parafoveal processing of Chinese three-character idioms in reading

• Chinese modifier-noun idioms are processed as Multi-Constituent Units. MCUs represented lexically single units. Parafoveal processing operates over the whole MCU. likely to be and Units (MCUs, a multi-word unit with lexical representation, see Zang, 2019). 1-character verb 2-character noun structure foveally, but not parafoveally, (Yu et al., 2016), probably because only loosely constrains identity. By contrast, more MCU candidates due significant modifier constraint subsequent noun. We investigated whether of this type parafoveally foveally during natural reading. In Experiment 1, we manipulated phrase (idiom or matched phrase) preview (identity, unrelated character pseudocharacter) using boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). A larger effect occurred for on shorter fixations identical than pseudocharacter previews. This suggests greater extent phrases. 2, phrases (identity was orthogonally (c.f., Cutter, Drieghe & Liversedge, 2014). For identity modifiers, relative providing further evidence that lexicalised single, unified representations.