Abstract
We investigated the extent to which accuracy in word identification in foveal and parafoveal vision is determined by variations in the visibility of the component letters of words. To do so we measured word identification accuracy in displays of three three-letter words, one on fixation and the others to the left and right of the central word. We also measured accuracy in identifying the component letters of these words when presented at the same location in a context of three three-letter nonword sequences. In the word identification block, accuracy was highest for central targets and significantly greater for words to the right compared with words to the left. In the letter identification block, we found an extended W-shaped function across all nine letters, with greatest accuracy for the three central letters and for the first and last letter in the complete sequence. Further analyses revealed significant correlations between average letter identification per nonword position and word identification at the corresponding position. We conclude that letters are processed in parallel across a sequence of three three-letter words, hence enabling parallel word identification when letter identification accuracy is high enough.
Highlights
Psycholinguistic models of reading have greatly benefited from investigations of visual word recognition (Balota, 1994), tackling the representations and processes involved in the identification of written words presented in isolation
It is immediately clear that in most reading contexts, visual information from multiple words becomes simultaneously available to the reader
Parafoveal processing, i.e., the processing of stimuli next to the fixated one, which goes beyond purely visual pre-attentive processing, occurs when attention has been shifted to that location in preparation for an eye movement
Summary
Psycholinguistic models of reading have greatly benefited from investigations of visual word recognition (Balota, 1994), tackling the representations and processes involved in the identification of written words presented in isolation. Whether the multiple words that are available to the reader, given visibility constraints (Grainger, Dufau, & Ziegler, 2016), are processed serially or in parallel is a hotly debated issue (e.g., Reichle, Liversedge, Pollatsek, & Rayner, 2009; Snell & Grainger, 2019). One model of eye movement and reading, the E-Z Reader model (Reichle et al, 2009; Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998), favors a serial perspective in which words are identified one by one In these models, parafoveal processing, i.e., the processing of stimuli next to the fixated one, which goes beyond purely visual pre-attentive processing, occurs when attention has been shifted to that location in preparation for an eye movement. We test some specific predictions derived from OB1-reader, and notably the relation between letter identification and word-identification processes in foveal and parafoveal vision
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