| Abstract: | An experiment is reported which investigates the perceptual span available to skilled readers in a single fixation. After adult readers had listened to an incomplete sentence they were presented tachistoscopically with a word which they were to name aloud. Congruency between sentence and word facilitated naming, but the presence of an unattended word in the right visual field confounded this relationship. If the unattended word was also congruent, then the naming response was further facilitated, but a congruent unattended word interfered with the naming of an incongruent attended word. This relationship did not hold for unattended words which were presented in the left visual field, and which did not appear to have been processed for meaning. An effect of an unattended word upon the naming of a fixated word suggests that skilled readers recognize the meanings of more words than are fixated. Skilled readers may use the meanings of words ahead of fixation to enrich their interpretation of the text, or use those words more simply as markers to guide future eye-movements to the location of the next useful fixation. |
