LINGUISTIC FOCUS AFFECTS EYE-MOVEMENTS DURING READING

In two experiments, we explored how readers encode information that is linguistically focused. Subjects read sentences in which a word or ph rase was focused by a syntactic manipulation (Experiment 1) or by a pr eceding context (Experiment 2) while their eye movements were monitore d. Readers had longer reading times while reading a region of the sent ence that was focused than when the same region was not focused. The r esults suggest that readers encode focused information more carefully, either upon first encountering it or during a second-pass reading of it. We conclude that the enhanced memory representations for focused i nformation found in previous studies may be due in part to differences in reading patterns for focused information.