Research dealing with parafoveal processing during eye fixations is reviewed. Four main topics are addressed: (1) parafoveal processing, (2) word skipping, (3) preview benefit effects, and (4) parafoveal-on-foveal effects. We argue that word skipping effects reflect the fact that a parafoveal word (word n+1) has been identified on the fixation on word n. We also review evidence which strongly suggests that preview benefits during reading are not due to semantic processing of a parafoveal word. Finally, we review the more recent and more controversial research suggesting that the meaning of word n+1 can influence the fixation time on word n, and argue that it is premature at this point to accept the validity of such findings with respect to normal reading. Implications of the research for serial attention shift models like the E-Z Reader model are also discussed. 4 While a great deal has been learned about eye movements during reading over the past twenty-five to thirty years (Liversedge & Findlay, 2000;Rayner, 1978Rayner, , 1998, there remain a number of unresolved issues (Starr & Rayner, 2001). In this chapter, we will focus our discussion on research related to one of these unresolved issues: parafoveal semantic processing of words. Research on this issue has apparently gained momentum because it has been assumed that if there were so-called parafoveal-on-foveal effects, or evidence that the meaning of the word to the right of fixation influences the duration of the fixation on the currently fixated word, it would be damaging to serial attention shift models such as the E-Z Reader model (Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998). We will return to this issue at the end of the chapter. However, before discussing the relevance of such research for the E-Z Reader model, we will first provide a general review of research on parafoveal processing and then discuss in turn (1) word skipping, (2) preview benefit effects, and (3) parafoveal-onfoveal effects.We argue that readers can identify word n+1 while fixating word n. When they do, its meaning becomes available and can influence fixation times on word n (and also word n+2). Furthermore, if word n+1 is identified, then the reader will skip that word. However, the primary argument we will make in this chapter is that if word n+1 is not identified then its meaning does not become available and therefore cannot affect fixation time on word n. In such a situation, word n+1 will typically not be skipped but must be fixated in order for word identification to occur. We argue that it would be premature at this point to accept evidence from studies that claim to show parafoveal-on-foveal effects as being very strong. Some of the evidence is based on tasks that may or may not easily generalize to reading and some of the evidence is inconsistent: while there are some studies showing parafoveal-on-foveal effects, there are also a number of studies that do not show such effects. While we will argue against the validity of some claims regarding parafoveal-on-foveal...

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SUMMARYViewers looked at print advertisements as their eye movements were recorded. Half of them were asked to rate how much they liked each ad (for convenience, we will generally use the term 'ad' from this point on), while the other half were asked to rate the effectiveness of each ad. Previous research indicated that viewers who were asked to consider purchasing products in the ads looked at the text earlier and more often than the picture part of the ad. In contrast, viewers in the present experiment looked at the picture part of the ad earlier and longer than the text. The results indicate quite clearly that the goal of the viewer very much influences where (and for how long) viewers look at different parts of ads, but also indicate that the nature of the ad per se matters.Where do people look in print ads? This question has recently generated a fair amount of research activity to determine the factors that influence which aspects of an ad are salient in capturing a viewer's attention (Goldberg, 1999;Pieters & Warlop, 1999;Pieters & Wedel, 2007; Pieters, Rosbergen, & Wedel, 1999;Radach, Lemmer, Vorstius, Heller, & Radach, 2003;Rayner, Rotello, Stewart, Keir, & Duffy, 2001;Wedel & Pieters, 2000). Given that eyemovement research has been so successful in illuminating how cognitive processes are influenced online in various information processing tasks (Rayner, 1978(Rayner, , 1998, such interest is not at all surprising. More recently, there have also been attempts to provide models of eyemovement control in scanning ads (Liechty, Pieters, & Wedel, 2003;Reichle & Nelson, 2003).Although there was some research on eye movements while viewers examined print ads prior to the late-1990s (see Radach et al., 2003, for a summary), it tended to be rather descriptive and non-diagnostic. The more recent research endeavour has focused on more analytically determining how aspects of the ad and the goal of the viewer interact to influence looking behaviour and the amount of attention devoted to different parts of the ad. For example Rayner et al. (2001) asked American participants to imagine that they had just moved to England and that they needed to either buy a new car (the car condition) or that they needed to buy skin care products (the skin care condition). Half of the participants were in each condition, but both groups saw the same set of 24 British ads. Thus, participants in the car group saw eight critical car ads, but they also saw eight critical skin car ads and eight filler ads (showing a variety of products); participants in the skin care group also saw the same eight car ads, eight skin care ads and eight filler ads. But, obviously, the two different types of ads should have had differing amounts of relevance to the viewers. Indeed, viewers in the car condition spent much more time looking at car ads than at skin care ads or filler ads, while the viewers in the skin care condition spent much more time looking at skin care ads than car ads. Another interesting finding in the Rayner et al. study was that viewers...

Recent research found that naming and lexical decision times for words with an early orthographic uniqueness point (OUP) were faster than for words with a late OUP (Kwantes & Mewhort, 1999a; Lindell, Nicholls, & Castles, 2003). A word's OUP corresponds to the letter position in the word where that word is differentiated from other words. These results have been presented as evidence for sequential letter processing in visual word recognition (Kwantes & Mewhort, 1999a). In two experiments, we attempted to extend these results to a more natural reading situation by recording participants' eye movements. Readers read sentences with early or late OUP words embedded in them. In both experiments, we manipulated the amount of parafoveal information available during reading. Readers did not show any consistent benefit for reading words with an early OUP regardless of the amount of preview available. Our results are at odds with the naming and lexical decision data and prove problematic for models that predict OUP effects.