Eye Movement Control during Reading: Foveal Load and Parafoveal Processing

We tested theories of eye movement control in reading by looking at parafoveal processing. According to attention-processing theories, attention shifts towards word n+1 only when processing of the fixated word n is finished, so that attended parafoveal processing does not start until the programming of the saccade programming to word n+1 is initiated (Henderson & Ferreira, 1990; Morrison, 1984), or even later when the processing of word n takes too long (Henderson & Ferreira, 1990). Parafoveal preview benefit should be constant whatever the foveal processing load (Morrison, 1984), or should decrease when processing word n outlasts an eye movement programming deadline (Henderson & Ferreira, 1990). By manipulating the frequency and length of the foveal word n and the visibility of the parafoveal word n+1, we replicated the finding that the parafoveal preview benefit is smaller with a low-frequency word in foveal vision. Detailed analyses, however, showed that the eye movement programming deadline hypothesis could not account for this finding which was due not to cases where the low-frequency words n had received a long fixation, but to cases of a short fixations less than 240 msec. In addition, there was a spill-over effect of word n to word n+1, and there was an element of parallel processing of both words. The results are more in line with parallel processing limited by the extent to which the parafoveal word processing on fixation n can be combined with the foveal word processing on fixation n+1.

[1]  G. McConkie,et al.  The span of the effective stimulus during a fixation in reading , 1975 .

[2]  P. Dunn‐Rankin,et al.  The visual characteristics of words. , 1978, Scientific American.

[3]  George W. McConkie,et al.  On the Role and Control of Eye Movements in Reading , 1979 .

[4]  K. Rayner.  Eye Guidance in Reading: Fixation Locations within Words , 1979, Perception.

[5]  M A Just,et al.  A theory of reading: from eye fixations to comprehension. , 1980, Psychological review.

[6]  C. Schiepers,et al.  Response latency and accuracy in visual word recogniton , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.

[7]  A W Inhoff,et al.  Parafoveal word perception: A case against semantic preprocessing , 1980, Perception & psychophysics.

[8]  G. McConkie,et al.  Integrating information across eye movements , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[9]  Keith Rayner,et al.  Eye movements and identifying words in parafoveal vision , 1981 .

[10]  J. H. Bertera,et al.  The availability of useful information to the right of fixation in reading , 1982, Perception & psychophysics.

[11]  Thomas W. Hogaboam,et al.  18 – Reading Patterns in Eye Movement Data , 1983 .

[12]  J. O'Regan,et al.  Convenient fixation location within isolated words of different length and structure. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[13]  R. E. Morrison,et al.  Manipulation of stimulus onset delay in reading: evidence for parallel programming of saccades. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[14]  D. Balota,et al.  The interaction of contextual constraints and parafoveal visual information in reading , 1985, Cognitive Psychology.

[15]  D. Balota,et al.  Inferences about eye movement control from the perceptual span in reading , 1986, Perception & psychophysics.

[16]  K. Rayner,et al.  Lexical complexity and fixation times in reading: Effects of word frequency, verb complexity, and lexical ambiguity , 1986, Memory & cognition.

[17]  K. Rayner,et al.  Parafoveal word processing during eye fixations in reading: Effects of word frequency , 1986, Perception & psychophysics.

[18]  J. O'Regan,et al.  Eye-movement strategy and tactics in word recognition and reading. , 1987 .

[19]  A W Inhoff,et al.  Parafoveal processing of words and saccade computation during eye fixations in reading. , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[20]  M D Reddix,et al.  Eye movement control during reading: II. Frequency of refixating a word , 1989, Perception & psychophysics.

[21]  Christine A. Curcio,et al.  The spatial resolution capacity of human foveal retina , 1989, Vision Research.

[22]  Robin K. Morris,et al.  Eye movement guidance in reading: the role of parafoveal letter and space information. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[23]  M. Mozer,et al.  On the Interaction of Selective Attention and Lexical Knowledge: A Connectionist Account of Neglect Dyslexia , 1990, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[24]  J. O'Regan,et al.  Optimal landing position in reading isolated words and continuous text , 1990, Perception & psychophysics.

[25]  J. Henderson,et al.  Effects of foveal processing difficulty on the perceptual span in reading: Implications for attention and eye movement control. , 1990 .

[26]  J. Henderson,et al.  Effects of foveal processing difficulty on the perceptual span in reading: implications for attention and eye movement control. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[27]  F. Vitu,et al.  The influence of parafoveal preprocessing and linguistic context on the optimal landing position effect , 1991, Perception & psychophysics.

[28]  Arthur M. Jacobs,et al.  On words and their letters , 1991 .

[29]  J. C. Johnston,et al.  The role of spatial attention in visual word processing. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[30]  A W Inhoff,et al.  Saccade programming during short duration fixations: an examination of copy typing, letter detection, and reading. , 1992, Acta psychologica.

[31]  K. Rayner,et al.  Eye movements and scene perception. , 1992, Canadian journal of psychology.

[32]  C. Clifton,et al.  Determinants of parafoveal preview benefit in high and low working memory capacity readers: implications for eye movement control. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[33]  J. O'Regan,et al.  Mindless reading: Eye-movement characteristics are similar in scanning letter strings and reading texts , 1995, Perception & psychophysics.

[34]  J. Kevin O'Regan,et al.  A Challenge to Current Theories of Eye Movements in Reading. , 1995 .

[35]  Marc Brysbaert,et al.  The Right Visual Field Advantage and the Optimal Viewing Position Effect : On the Relation Between Foveal and Parafoveal Word Recognition , 1996 .

[36]  R. H. Baayen,et al.  The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM) , 1996 .

[37]  Gary E. Raney,et al.  Eye movement control in reading: a comparison of two types of models. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[38]  Marc Brysbaert,et al.  The Right Visual Field Advantage and the Optimal Viewing Position Effect: On the Relation Between Foveal and Parafoveal Word Recognition , 1996 .

[39]  Sara C. Sereno,et al.  Eye movement control in reading: a comparison of two types of models. , 1996 .