Time Course of Linguistic Information Extraction From Consecutive Words During Eye Fixations in Reading.

Sequential attention shift models of reading predict that an attended (typically fixated) word must be recognized before useful linguistic information can be obtained from the following (parafoveal) word. These models also predict that linguistic information is obtained from a parafoveal word immediately prior to a saccade toward it. To test these assumptions, sentences were constructed with a critical pretarget-target word sequence, and the temporal availability of the (parafoveal) target preview was manipulated while the pretarget word was fixated. Target viewing effects, examined as a function of prior target visibility, revealed that extraction of linguistic target information began 70-140 ms after the onset of pretarget viewing. Critically, acquisition of useful linguistic information from a target was not confined to the ending period of pretarget viewing. These results favor theoretical conceptions in which there is some temporal overlap in the linguistic processing of a fixated and parafoveally visible word during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrating information across fixations during reading: The use of orthographic bodies and of exterior letters.

Eye movements were recorded to determine whether the parafoveally visible orthographic body of a bisyllabic target word facilitated recognition during the next target fixation. Eye-movement-contingent display changes revealed part of the target, including its orthographic body, or its beginning letters, when it was parafoveally available, but the full target was visible after it was fixated. Target viewing durations showed no benefit from parafoveal preview of orthographic bodies. Instead, preview benefits derived primarily from the preview of word-initial letters. Examination of oculomotor activity revealed that single target fixations were common when the pretarget word received more than one fixation; conversely, more than one target fixation was common when the pretarget word had received a single fixation. Interword fixation strategies thus affected target viewing, but use of parafoveal target previews was unaffected by these strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preview benefit during eye fixations in reading for older and younger readers.

Older and younger readers read sentences as their eye movements were recorded, and the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) was used to present either a valid or an invalid parafoveal preview of a target word. During the saccade to the target word, the preview word changed to the target word. For early measures of processing time (first fixation duration and single fixation duration), the standard preview benefit effect (shorter fixation times on the target word with a valid preview than an invalid preview) was obtained for both older and younger readers. However, for gaze duration and go-past time, the preview benefit was somewhat attenuated in the older readers in comparison to the younger readers, suggesting that on some fixations older readers obtain less preview benefit from the word to the right of fixation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parafoveal processing of words and saccade computation during eye fixations in reading.

Studied parafoveal word processing during eye fixations in reading to answer two questions: (a) Is the processing of parafoveally available words limited to the identification of beginning letters? (b) Does the parafoveal processing of words affect the following interword saccade? Reading afforded either no parafoveal preview, preview of beginning trigrams, preview of ending trigrams, or preview of the whole parafoveal word. Previews were controlled by replacing original letters either with X's or dissimilar letters. Preview benefits were larger for the whole word previews than for beginning or ending trigram previews. X-masks yielded preview benefits from intact beginning and ending trigrams but dissimilar letter masks yielded benefits from beginning trigrams only. Saccades were larger for whole word previews than for no previews. These results support Logogen-type models of word recognition and a model of saccade computation that posits a time-locked functional relation between the acquisition of parafoveal word information and the positioning of each fixation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of word frequency, word predictability, and font difficulty on the eye movements of young and older readers.

Young adult and older readers' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences containing target words that varied in frequency or predictability. In addition, half of the sentences were printed in a font that was easy to read (Times New Roman) and the other half were printed in a font that was more difficult to read (Old English). Word frequency, word predictability, and font difficulty effects were apparent in the eye movement data of both groups of readers. In the fixation time data, the pattern of results was the same, but the older readers had larger frequency and predictability effects than the younger readers. The older readers skipped words more often than the younger readers (as indicated by their skipping rate on selected target words), but they made more regressions back to the target words and more regressions overall. The E-Z Reader model was used as a platform to evaluate the results, and simulations using the model suggest that lexical processing is slowed in older readers and that, possibly as a result of this, they adopt a more risky reading strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of parafoveal preview benefit in high and low working memory capacity readers: Implications for eye movement control.

The experiment in this article extended studies by A. W. Inhoff and K. Rayner (see record 1988-06513-001) and J. M. Henderson and F. Ferreira (see record 1990-18858-001) to determine how the printed frequency of two adjacent words influenced the benefit of having parafoveal preview of the 2nd word. High- and low-span participants (assessed by M. Daneman and P. A. Carpenter's, [see PA, Vol 66:2775] Reading Span Test) were tested to determine whether working memory capacity influenced parafoveal preview benefit. Parafoveal preview benefit was determined by an interaction of both words' frequencies in first fixation and by the 2nd word's frequency in gaze duration. However, readers were generally fixated closer to the beginning of the 2nd word when the 1st word was low frequency. When the viewing distance confound was minimized, the prior word's frequency did affect parafoveal preview benefit. Parafoveal preview benefit did not vary between reading groups. Group distributions of fixation duration provided no evidence for J. M. Henderson and F. Ferreira's fixation cutoff model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parafoveal processing of word n + 2 during reading: Do the preceding words matter?

We used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) to test two hypotheses that might explain why no conclusive evidence has been found for the existence of n + 2 preprocessing effects. In Experiment 1, we tested whether parafoveal processing of the second word to the right of fixation (n + 2) takes place only when the preceding word (n + 1) is very short (Angele, Slattery, Yang, Kliegl, & Rayner, 2008); word n + 1 was always a three-letter word. Before crossing the boundary, preview for both words n + 1 and n + 2 was either incorrect or correct. In a third condition, only the preview for word n + 1 was incorrect. In Experiment 2, we tested whether word frequency of the preboundary word (n) had an influence on the presence of preview benefit and parafoveal-on-foveal effects. Additionally, Experiment 2 contained a condition in which only preview of n + 2 was incorrect. Our findings suggest that effects of parafoveal n + 2 preprocessing are not modulated by either n + 1 word length or n frequency. Furthermore, we did not observe any evidence of parafoveal lexical preprocessing of word n + 2 in either experiment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of foveal processing difficulty on the perceptual span in reading: Implications for attention and eye movement control.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of foveal processing difficulty on the perceptual span in reading. Subjects read sentences while their eye movements were recorded. By changing the text contingent on the reader's current point of fixation, foveal processing difficulty and the availability of parafoveal word information were independently manipulated. In Experiment 1, foveal processing difficulty was manipulated by lexical frequency, and in Experiment 2 foveal difficulty was manipulated by syntactic complexity. In both experiments, less parafoveal information was acquired when processing in the fovea was difficult. We conclude that the perceptual span is variable and attentionally constrained. We also discuss the implications of the results for current models of the relation between covert visual–spatial attention and eye movement control in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements when reading transposed text: The importance of word-beginning letters.

Participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences with words containing transposed adjacent letters. Transpositions were either external (e.g., problme, rpoblem) or internal (e.g., porblem, probelm) and at either the beginning (e.g., rpoblem, porblem) or end (e.g., problme, probelm) of words. The results showed disruption for words with transposed letters compared to the normal baseline condition, and the greatest disruption was observed for word-initial transpositions. In Experiment 1, transpositions within low frequency words led to longer reading times than when letters were transposed within high frequency words. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the position of word-initial letters is most critical even when parafoveal preview of words to the right of fixation is unavailable. The findings have important implications for the roles of different letter positions in word recognition and the effects of parafoveal preview on word recognition processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parafoveal preview during reading: Effects of sentence position.

Two experiments examined parafoveal preview for words located in the middle of sentences and at sentence boundaries. Parafoveal processing was shown to occur for words at sentence-initial, mid-sentence, and sentence-final positions. Both Experiments 1 and 2 showed reduced effects of preview on regressions out for sentence-initial words. In addition, Experiment 2 showed reduced preview effects on first-pass reading times for sentence-initial words. These effects of sentence position on preview could result from either reduced parafoveal processing for sentence-initial words or other processes specific to word reading at sentence boundaries. In addition to the effects of preview, the experiments also demonstrate variability in the effects of sentence wrap-up on different reading measures, indicating that the presence and time course of wrap-up effects may be modulated by text-specific factors. We also report simulations of Experiment 2 using version 10 of E-Z Reader (Reichle, Warren, & McConnell, 2009), designed to explore the possible mechanisms underlying parafoveal preview at sentence boundaries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movement guidance in reading: The role of parafoveal letter and space information.

The relation between parafoveal letter and space information in eye movement guidance during reading was investigated in 2 experiments. Contingent upon the reader's fixation, the type of parafoveal information available to the right of fixation was varied by (a) space information only, (b) space information with letter information added at some delay, or (c) letter and space information simultaneously. In addition, the onset of the relevant parafoveal information was delayed between 0 and 250 ms into the fixation. The time course of processing the 2 types of information (letters or spaces) differed, as did the nature of their impact on the eye movement record. Although both letter and space information influenced saccade length and initial landing positions within words, only letter information had an effect on fixation duration. In addition, fixation duration was affected only by information entering within the first 50 ms of the fixation, whereas saccade length was affected by information arriving at any time during the fixation. The results are consistent with a model of eye movement control (A. W. Inhoff and K. Raner [see PA, Vol 75:6513] and A. Pollatsek et al [see PA, Vol 74:27114]) in which 2 independent processes are operating in tandem to determine when and where to move the eyes during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye Movements and Word Skipping During Reading Revisited.

The authors examined word skipping in reading in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, skipping rates were higher for a preview of a predictable word than for a visually similar nonword, indicating there is full recognition in parafoveal vision. In Experiment 2, foveal load was manipulated by varying the frequency of the word preceding either a 3-letter target word or a misspelled preview. There was again a higher skipping rate for a correct preview and a lower skipping rate when there was a high foveal load, but there was no interaction, and the pattern of effects in fixation times was the same as in the skipping data. Experiment 2 also showed significant skipping of nonwords similar to the target word, indicating skipping based on partial information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of phonological codes in integrating information across saccadic eye movements in Chinese character identification.

Prior research has generally assumed either that phonological codes do not contribute to Chinese character identification or that they do so only through a look-up process at the character level. In 3 experiments, a homophone seen parafoveally aided the identification of a target character that was fixated following an eye movement to the preview location. Moreover, high-frequency phonetically regular characters were named faster than high frequency, phonetically irregular characters. Thus, both lexical and sublexical phonological codes of Chinese characters are involved early in the process of character identification. Orthographic information from the preview was also used in character identification, as orthographically similar previews facilitated target identification as well. The evidence for the extraction of semantic information from parafoveal previews was mixed, as synonym previews facilitated in Experiment 2 but not in Experiment 1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movement control during reading: Effects of word frequency and orthographic familiarity.

Word frequency and orthographic familiarity were independently manipulated as readers' eye movements were recorded. Word frequency influenced fixation durations and the probability of word skipping when orthographic familiarity was controlled. These results indicate that lexical processing of words can influence saccade programming (as shown by fixation durations and which words are fixated). Orthographic familiarity, but not word frequency, influenced the duration of prior fixations. These results provide evidence for orthographic, but not lexical, parafoveal-on-foveal effects. Overall, the findings have a crucial implication for models of eye movement control in reading: There must be sufficient time for lexical factors to influence saccade programming before saccade metrics and timing are finalized. The conclusions are critical for the fundamental architecture of models of eye movement control in reading- namely, how to reconcile long saccade programming times and complex linguistic influences on saccades during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of parafoveally visible characters during the reading of Chinese sentences.

Chinese readers' use of parafoveal character previews was examined. In Experiment 1, the preview of target characters consisted of targets or of graphemically similar, homophonic, or dissimilar characters. Each preview was replaced with the corresponding target when the eyes reached the target location. Oculomotor measures revealed preview benefits for targets, for graphemically similar characters, and for homophonic characters. Experiment 2 showed that parafoveal preview of graphemically similar characters yielded benefits primarily when they shared the phonetic radical with their targets. The phonological relationship between previewed radicals and subsequently viewed targets was ineffective. Chinese character processing thus involves the initial use of orthographic information from the phonetic radical and the activation of the character's phonological form. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Effects of Frequency and Predictability on Eye Fixations in Reading: Implications for the E-Z Reader Model.

Readers read sentences containing target words varying in frequency and predictability. The observed pattern of data for fixation durations only mildly departed from additivity, with predictability effects that were slightly larger for low-frequency than for high-frequency words. The pattern of data for skipping was different as predictability affected only the probability of skipping for high-frequency target words. Simulations of these data using the E-Z Reader model indicated that a single-process model was unlikely to provide a good fit for both measures. A version of the model that assumes that (a) word-encoding time is additively affected by frequency and predictability and (b) difficulty with postlexical processing of the target word causes a double take accounted for the data while indicating that the relationship between the duration of hypothesized word-encoding stages and observed fixation durations is not likely to be transparent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transposed-letter effects in reading: Evidence from eye movements and parafoveal preview.

Three eye movement experiments were conducted to examine the role of letter identity and letter position during reading. Before fixating on a target word within each sentence, readers were provided with a parafoveal preview that differed in the amount of useful letter identity and letter position information it provided. In Experiments 1 and 2, previews fell into 1 of 5 conditions: (a) identical to the target word, (b) a transposition of 2 internal letters, (c) a substitution of 2 internal letters, (d) a transposition of the 2 final letters, or (e) a substitution of the 2 final letters. In Experiment 3, the authors used a further set of conditions to explore the importance of external letter positions. The findings extend previous work and demonstrate that transposed-letter effects exist in silent reading. These experiments also indicate that letter identity information can be extracted from the parafovea outside of absolute letter position from the first 5 letters of the word to the right of fixation. Finally, the results support the notion that exterior letters play important roles in visual word recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do chinese readers obtain preview benefit from word n + 2? Evidence from eye movements.

The boundary paradigm (K. Rayner, 1975) was used to determine the extent to which Chinese readers obtain information from the right of fixation during reading. As characters are the basic visual unit in written Chinese, they were used as targets in Experiment 1 to examine whether readers obtain preview information from character n + 1 and character n + 2. The results from Experiment 1 suggest they do. In Experiment 2, 2-character target words were used to determine whether readers obtain preview information from word n + 2 as well as word n + 1. Robust preview effects were obtained for word n + 1. There was also evidence from gaze duration (but not first fixation duration), suggesting preview effects for word n + 2. Moreover, there was evidence for parafoveal-on-foveal effects in Chinese reading in both experiments. Implications of these results for models of eye movement control are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vowel processing during silent reading: Evidence from eye movements.

Two eye movement experiments examined whether skilled readers include vowels in the early phonological representations used in word recognition during silent reading. Target words were presented in sentences preceded by parafoveal previews in which the vowel phoneme was concordant or discordant with the vowel phoneme in the target word. In Experiment 1, the orthographic vowel differed from the target in both the concordant and discordant preview conditions. In Experiment 2, the vowel letters in the preview were identical to those in the target word. The phonological vowel was ambiguous, however, and the final consonants of the previews biased the vowel phoneme either toward or away from the target's vowel phoneme. In both experiments, shorter reading times were observed for targets preceded by concordant previews than by discordant previews. Implications for models of word recognition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)