Eye movement control during reading: Fixation measures reflect foveal but not parafoveal processing difficulty.

Explored whether, during natural reading, the difficulty of the upcoming parafoveal word affects eye movement behavior on the currently fixated word. A model in which visual attention is allocated in parallel over both the fixated and the upcoming parafoveal word predicts such an effect, while a sequential attention allocation model, in which attention is directed first to the fixated word and then to the upcoming parafoveal word, does not. An experiment was conducted with 24 college students in which 2 manipulations of parafoveal difficulty were made. Data show that neither the frequency nor the combined length, frequency, and class of the upcoming word affected eye movement behavior on the current word. Findings support the model of eye movement control in reading. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)