Word Identification in Context 563The research we have reported here has focused on the fact
that information extracted from a parafoveal word decreases
the fixation time on that word when it is subsequently fixated.
However, recently, a number of studies have examined
whether information located in the parafovea influences the
processing of the currently fixated word or, in similar terms,
whether readers may process two or more words in parallel.
Murray (1998) designed a word comparison task in which
readers were to asked to detect a one-word difference in
meaning between two sentences. Fixation times on target
words were shorter when the parafoveal word was a plausible
continuation of the sentence as compared to when it was an
implausible continuation. In another study, Kennedy (2000)
instructed subjects to discriminate whether successively fix-
ated words were identical or synonymous to each other, and
found that fixation times on fixated (foveal) words were
longer when the parafoveal word had a high frequency of
occurrence as compared to a low frequency of occurrence.
It is possible, however, that the nature of attentional alloca-
tion is different in word comparison tasks than it is in more
naturalistic reading tasks. In fact, several studies have demon-
strated that the frequency of the word to the right of fixation
during reading does not influence the processing of the fixated
word (Carpenter & Just, 1983; Henderson & Ferreira, 1993;
Rayner et al., 1998). To examine more closely whether proper-
ties of parafoveal words may have an effect on the viewing
durations of the currently fixated word during natural reading,
Inhoff, Starr, and Shindler (2000) constructed sentence triplets
in which readers were allowed one of three types of parafoveal
preview. In the related condition, when readers fixated on a
target word (e.g.,traffic), they saw a related word (e.g.,light)in
the parafovea. In the unrelated condition, when readers fixated
on the target word (e.g.,traffic), they saw a semantically unre-
lated word (e.g.,smoke) in the parafovea. Finally, in the dis-
similar condition, upon fixating a target word, readers saw a
series of quasi-random letters in the parafovea (e.g.,govcq).
Readers’ fixation times on target words were shortest in the
related condition (though not different from the unrelated
word) and longest in the dissimilar condition, suggesting that
they at least processed some degree of abstract letter informa-
tion from the parafoveal stimuli in parallel with the currently
fixated word. However, semantic properties (i.e., meaning) of
the parafoveal word had little effect on the time spent reading
the target word.
Summary
The relative ease with which we read words is influenced by
a number of variables, which include both low-level factors
such as word length and high-level factors such as word
frequency. The region of text from which readers may extract
useful information on any given fixation is limited to the
word being fixated and perhaps the next one or two words to
the right. Moreover, the information that may be obtained to
the right of fixation is generally limited to abstract letter
codes (McConkie & Zola, 1979; Rayner et al., 1980) and
phonological codes (Pollatsek et al., 1992), both of which
may play a role in integrating information from words across
saccades. Although there is no evidence that indicates that vi-
sual, morphological, or semantic information extracted from
the parafovea aids later word identification, there is some
controversy as to whether words may (under some circum-
stances and to some extent) be processed in parallel.WORD IDENTIFICATION IN CONTEXTThere are many studies measuring either accuracy of identi-
fication in tachistoscopic (i.e., very brief) presentations
(Tulving & Gold, 1963), naming latency (Becker, 1985;
Stanovich & West, 1979, 1983), or lexical decision latency
(Fischler & Bloom, 1979; Schuberth & Eimas, 1977) that have
also demonstrated contextual effects on word identification.
These experiments typically involved having subjects read a
sentence fragment likeThe skiers were buried alive by the sud-
den.. .. The subjects were then either shown the target word
avalanchevery briefly and asked to identify it or the word was
presented until they made a response to it (such as naming or
lexical decision). The basic finding in the brief exposure ex-
periments was that people could identify the target word at
significantly briefer exposures when the context predicted it
than when it was preceded either by neutral context, inappro-
priate context, or no context. In the naming and lexical deci-
sion versions of the experiment, a highly constraining context
facilitated naming or lexical decision latency relative to a neu-
tral condition such as the frameThe next word in the sentence
will be. We should note that there has been some controversy
over the appropriate baseline to use in these experiments, but
that is beyond the scope of this chapter. We turn now to a dis-
cussion of context effects when readers are reading text.
In the previous section we discussed a number of variables
that influence the ease or difficulty with which a word may be
processed during reading. As we have pointed out, much of
the variation in readers’ eye fixation times can be explained
by differences in word length and word frequency. In addi-
tion, a number of variables involved in text processing at a
higher level have also been found to affect the speed of word
identification. For example, we have already mentioned that
a parafoveal word is more likely to be skipped if it is pre-
dictable from prior sentence context (Ehrlich & Rayner,
1981; O’Regan, 1979). Moreover, such predictable words are
also fixated for shorter periods of time (Balota, Pollatsek, &