Sequential masking during eye fixations in reading

Abstract

Letters in the center of vision were masked during readers’ eye fixations. Although Experiment 1 suggested that letters are processed sequentially, Experiment 2 demonstrated that the results were due to the fact that letters fixated on fixation n receive preliminary processing on fixation n-1 when they are in parafoveal vision. When no parafoveal information was available, the results indicated that letters are processed in parallel. © 1987, The psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.