Using the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm with the boundary placed after word n, we manipulated preview of word n+2 for fixations on word n. There was no preview benefit for first-pass reading on word n+2, replicating the results of Rayner, Juhasz, and Brown (2007), but there was a preview benefit on the three-letter word n+1, that is, after the boundary, but before word n+2. Additionally, both word n+1 and word n+2 exhibited parafoveal-on-foveal effects on word n. Thus, during a fixation on word n and given a short word n+1, some information is extracted from word n+2, supporting the hypothesis of distributed processing in the perceptual span.Key words: eye movements, reading, preview benefit, parafoveal-on-foveal effects Preprocessing word n+2 3 Two competing hypotheses organize much current research on eye-movement control during reading: (a) parallel lexical processing of words in the perceptual span with efficiency decreasing with eccentricity of words relative to the point of fixation and (b) strictly serial word-by-word processing with sequential shifts of attention. The differences between these positions are much more graded than this simple dichotomy suggests (for recent presentations see, e.g., Engbert, Nuthmann, Richter, & Kliegl, 2005;Inhoff, Eiter, & Radach, 2005;Kliegl, Nuthmann, & Engbert, 2006;Kliegl, 2007;McDonald, Carpenter & Shillcock, 2005;Pollatsek, Reichle, & Rayner, 2006;Pynte & Kennedy, 2006).A critical empirical question for all theoretical proposals is the spatial extent of the influence of parafoveal words. The perceptual span, a region extending three to four letters to the left and up to fifteen letters to the right of fixation, sets the outer limits (McConkie & Rayner, 1975;Rayner & Bertera, 1979). Letter-specific information, however, is extracted only up to seven or eight letters to the right (e.g., Rayner, 1998, for a review). Granting preview of word n+1 during a fixation on word n facilitates later processing of word n+1.This preview benefit is measured with the boundary paradigm, where a critical word in the direction of reading is only revealed when the eyes cross the space before it (Rayner, 1975). There is also evidence that sublexical or lexical properties of word n+1 influence the fixation on word n. Comprehensive reviews of this controversial debate from different perspectives can be found in Inhoff, Radach, Starr, and Greenberg (2000), Kennedy (2000), Kennedy, Pynte, and Ducrot (2002), and Rayner, White, Kambe, Miller, and Liversedge (2003). went beyond earlier research and examined preview benefit on a target word with boundaries placed either after the preceding word (n+1 preview condition) or even the word preceding it (n+2 preview condition). There were preview benefits in the former but no preview benefits in the latter case and there were no parafoveal-on-foveal Preprocessing word n+2 4 effects in two experiments. 1 These results were interpreted to favor models like E-Z Reader that expect preprocessing of word n+2 only under very specific circumstance...

Many studies have shown that previewing the next word n + 1 during reading leads to substantial processing benefit (e.g., shorter word viewing times) when this word is eventually fixated. However, evidence of such preprocessing in fixations on the preceding word n when in fact the information about the preview is acquired is far less consistent. A recent study suggested that such effects may be delayed into fixations on the next word n + 1 (Risse & Kliegl, 2012). To investigate the time course of parafoveal information-acquisition on the control of eye movements during reading, we conducted 2 gaze-contingent display-change experiments and orthogonally manipulated the processing difficulty (i.e., word frequency) of an n + 1 preview word and its validity relative to the target word. Preview difficulty did not affect fixation durations on the pretarget word n but on the target word n + 1. In fact, the delayed preview-difficulty effect was almost of the same size as the preview benefit associated with the n + 1 preview validity. Based on additional results from quantile-regression analyses on the time course of the 2 preview effects, we discuss consequences as to the integration of foveal and parafoveal information and potential implications for computational models of eye guidance in reading.

Following up on research suggesting an age-related reduction in the rightward extent of the perceptual span during reading (Rayner, Castelhano, & Yang, 2009), we compared old and young adults in an N + 2-boundary paradigm in which a nonword preview of word N + 2 or word N + 2 itself is replaced by the target word once the eyes cross an invisible boundary located after word N. The intermediate word N + 1 was always three letters long. Gaze durations on word N + 2 were significantly shorter for identical than nonword N + 2 preview both for young and for old adults, with no significant difference in this preview benefit. Young adults, however, did modulate their gaze duration on word N more strongly than old adults in response to the difficulty of the parafoveal word N + 1. Taken together, the results suggest a dissociation of preview benefit and parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Results are discussed in terms of age-related decline in resilience towards distributed processing while simultaneously preserving the ability to integrate parafoveal information into foveal processing. As such, the present results relate to proposals of regulatory compensation strategies older adults use to secure an overall reading speed very similar to that of young adults.

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