Interpreting sentences spoken in a second language can be
demanding and plagued with uncertainty, especially for lower
proficiency listeners. While native language listeners use
numerous information sources to anticipate upcoming words
accurately, the pattern of anticipation may be different for
second language users. We explore this issue in bilinguals with
varying English proficiency by recording anticipatory eyemovements
as participants listened to sentences (e.g., “The
pirate chases the ship”) for which the object and three
distractors (agent-related, action-related, unrelated) appeared
in the concurrently presented images. Higher proficiency
participants were faster than lower proficiency participants.
Fixations to action-related distractors after onset of the action
also varied by proficiency, with lower proficiency participants
showing greater tendency to fixate this locally coherent actionrelated
distractor. This final effect is supported by a trial level
analysis, but appears to be unrelated to the effect of proficiency
on anticipation speed.