Parafoveal guidance and priming effects during reading: A special case of the mind being ahead of the eyes

Abstract

The present experiment investigates the linkage between the eyes and the mind by having readers inspect long target words as part of a sentence comprehension task. The main question being, can text away from the present line of regard be processed and used to guide future eye movements? The long target words in our sentences had informative beginnings or informative endings, and the first fixation upon the target was found to be located toward the informative half. This effect was independent of predictive and unpredictive prior contexts, suggesting that the effect was not due to anticipation. These results suggest that the first fixation upon a word is sensitive to information processing that has been completed prior to that fixation. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the eye-mind assumption and the relationship between the direction of the readers' eyes and the direction of attention.