Linguistic focus affects eye movements during reading

Abstract

In two experiments, we explored how readers encode information that is linguistically focused. Subjects read sentences in which a word or phrase was focused by a syntactic manipulation (Experiment 1) or by a preceding context (Experiment 2) while their eye movements were monitored. Readers had longer reading times while reading a region of the sentence that was focused than when the same region was not focused. The results suggest that readers encode focused information more carefully, either upon first encountering it or during a second-pass reading of it. We conclude that the enhanced memory representations for focused information found in previous studies may be due in part to differences in reading patterns for focused information.