Eye movement control in reading: The role of word boundaries

Abstract

Three experiments, involving 19 members of a university community, examined the functions of spaces between words in the reading of text. Certain spaces in stimulus sentences were filled contingent upon the reader's fixation: all spaces to the right of fixation, all spaces to the right of fixation except in the 1st, or only the 1st space to the right of fixation. Several space-filling characters were used: random letters, random digits, and "gratings." In addition, the onset of the space fillers was delayed 0-250 msec into the fixation. In the 1st-space-preserved conditions, the space fillers had no effect if they were delayed more than 50 msec, and there was little difference in the amount of interference resulting from the various space-filling characters. In the other 2 conditions, the space fillers produced interference at all delays studied, and letters were considerably more interfering as space fillers than were digits or gratings. Results are consistent with a 2-process theory in which filling parafoveal spaces disrupts the guidance of the next eye movement and filling foveal spaces disrupts the processing of the fixated word as well. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1982 American Psychological Association.