EYE-MOVEMENT CONTROL IN READING - EVIDENCE AGAINST SEMANTIC PREPROCESSING

Prior experiments reported by Underwood and his colleagues have suggested that information about the informative parts of parafoveal words that have not vet been fixated can influence where readers fixate next. The basic finding that they have reported is that the eves move farther into a word when the information that uniquely identifies the word is at the end of the word rather than at the beginning of the word. On the basis of such results, it has been suggested that semantic preprocessing influences eve movement behavior in reading. Some theoretical and methodological problems are raised with the prior experiments and then an attempt to replicate the finding is reported. With a highly accurate eyetracking system, the basic finding could not be replicated. An alternative account of eve movement control in reading is discussed.